Rise of the Machines

It was one of those nutty days, again. In their attempt to rescue the Dow from BA (which bounced after closing the gap as expected, perhaps dipping into its $20 billion buyback kitty)……the algos left some ridiculous patterns on our charts. Witness the Dow, which was setting up for a perfectly logical backtest of its 200-DMA based on BA’s pre-market crash.Though I get tired of saying it, the primary culprit was VIX — which has cratered over 27% in the past 48 hours.The broad indices were only too happy to follow VIX’s lead — putting stocks right back at the same resistance they faced in mid-February.