The death cross is one of those tried and true technical indicators that often portends big drops.  When a stock’s 50-DMA drops below its 200-DMA, it tends to drop like a rock (unless it’s FB, which uses such crosses to time its buyback announcements.)

I thought it’d be interesting to look at VIX, which has had such an important impact on stocks — especially over the last two years. Previous death crosses (when it’s 50-DMA rises above its 200-DMA) are marked with a yellow arrow, and it’s pretty clear that they have predictably indicated big spikes in VIX — and, big drops in SPX.It’s interesting, then, that as of yesterday’s close the 50-DMA and 200-DMA were both at 15.97.  This morning, the 50-DMA ticked slightly higher — making this the most bearish chart I know of.continued for members…

SPX’s current state of affairs.

And, the latest on ES, still on the brink.

RB came within .01 of our next downside target overnight.  And, CL is still twisting in the wind.  A drop through 64.43 could see things really accelerate to the downside. In currencies, EURUSD came within .0016 of our downside target and is getting a nice bounce. While, USDJPY is still faltering after its recent breakout.I’ve been focused on 97.873 for DXY’s next top, but I also like where it pivoted earlier today.  The white line running through today’s and Aug 15’s highs is the .786 channel line of the huge white channel guiding DXY higher since 2008.  It has nicely captured the highs, lows and interim reversals since 2004.  Ordinarily, a bounce from the midline (as we saw in February) to the .786 would be followed by a drop (ideally to the .236 line, but I’m not holding my breath.) UPDATE:  11:20 AM

CL just pushed below horizontal support at 64.43, meaning the coast is clear for 59.47.  This would be a huge 8% drop, the equivalent of 1.5915 for RB – which just reached our 1.7241 target.  Note that RB’s idealized channel bottom is around 1.6840.  Though we obviously have horizontal support at 1.6519.  Bottom line, watch your stops. I imagine the goal is to have gas prices as low as possible on Nov 6. UPDATE:  3:20 PM

If you like algo-driven meltups, today was your kind of day.  I guess someone got the memo, because this morning’s death cross… …uncrossed.And, VIX’s midline bounce…unbounced.A lot of stock is being placed in AAPL’s earnings report…coming in after the close.