Will a Strong Market Get Stronger--And Other Ideas to Start the Week

* Followup to Market Strength - My update to the Trading Psychology Weblog offers a chart of the Cumulative NYSE TICK, and you can see the recent surge in buying interest. Indeed, we've had solid daily cumulative TICK readings for six consecutive trading sessions. I went back to July, 2003 (when I first began archiving the data in this fashion; N = 1022 trading days) and found 31 instances in which the five-day average Cumulative TICK was above +500. Ten days later, the S&P 500 Index (SPY) was up by an average of 1.20% (27 up, 4 down). That's quite a bullish edge compared to the average ten-day gain of .37% for the remainder of the sample. Overall, surges in buying have tended to yield further buying interest before reversing.

* New Features on Seeking Alpha - The Seeking Alpha site aggregates a number of blog features by category, such as "The Market", "ETFs", "China", etc. An interesting and useful new feature is a listing of hedge fund jobs. I also like the listing of transcripts from company conference calls. Excellent resource.

* Options Strategy for This Market - The Daily Options Report notes the collapse in the VIX and finds a strategy for exploiting the volatility skew.

* Catching Up on Markets - Charles Kirk offers more links, including perspectives on a Fed rate cut and whether that would do any good. The Big Picture offers its weekly wrap-up, with a startling view of emerging markets performance during the recent weakness. Abnormal Returns examines a convergence in returns across different investment strategies and a view of what happens after market booms. Millionaire Now! offers a wide summary of blog reviews and takes a look at how the real estate weakness is affecting the realtor business.

* Do They Make a Difference? - The excellent CXO Advisory blog summarizes research regarding secondary offerings and stock buybacks and whether those affect future price changes.