Two days as market features mirror trading day images of each other.

This only serves to confuse investors, and me too!

One takeaway leads to volume consideration once again. The theme has been weak volume on rallies but high volume on sell-offs. Wednesday featured similar action as higher volume on selling marks distribution while the other features poor participation.

Volume on selling Wednesday increased modestly (6%) from Tuesday’s rally. So that distinction still occurred from light volume vs heavy volume action.

Leading the way higher was crude oil as inventories showed a sharp decline which is bullish and USO responded up 3.25%. The dollar fell and commodities (precious metals & base metals) rallied overall as did high grade bonds given a well subscribed Treasury auction.

One earnings standout was Macy’s (M) as the stock plunged over 15% which reflects how weak retail sales are for big box retailers. This report coursed through markets Wednesday.

Let’s just say, given the wild last couple of days, it’s not an easy chore to advance any crystal ball insights given the past 2 days.

Below is the heat map from Finviz reflecting those ETF market sectors moving higher (green) and falling (red). Dependent on the day (green) may mean leveraged inverse or leveraged short (red).

Volume was heavy and breadth per the WSJ was negative.

Chart Of The Day

There’s a couple more days to this stock market show heading towards Friday the 13th and I’m just as interested as you to see how it turns out.

Let’s see what happens.