NDX held the 50 DMA and bounced

NDX a slide below the 10DMA

NDX Stoped at the 10 DMA

NDX a move above the 50DMA

NDX Trending down

NDX repeating a pattern

Friday saw a sudden drop in NDX 100 index, considered as a worse week of the past two years. Interestingly it happened right after one of the best months of the past two years. I do believe that it was just another profit taking episode and nothing else. After a sharp run up that we saw in the last month, some profit-taking by nervous short-term stock holders was all but natural. The whole process, however, may be somewhat more complicated. A sell off like this is usually is the product of several participants with different mindset, account size and profit goals. Usually a long and sustained run-up develops within its participants a mindset of never ending bull market, where these players keeps on buying a market that is dully rewarding them and enticing them to keep increasing the bet size. After a while and some considerable gains a mindset of 'giving it all back' sets in and a slight decline on any given day turns that mind set into a fear, what makes it worse is the triggering of stop loss orders, traders watching their fortunes turning from big gains into losses start selling their long positions in a panic. Adding to euphoria is the short sellers doubling down on their positions from days or weeks prior, who were closely watching an extended markets and anticipating a sell off to happen soon. The result is a sharp and abrupt declines just like the one we witnessed last Friday that  evaporates several weeks of gains within hours.

NDX Break in the uptrend?

Seeing a first red candle after a long time.
/NQ

5 cryptocurrencies to watch

These are the virtual currencies that did better than bitcoin

Ripple

The bestseller among the top five of the largest cryptocurrencies. Ripple went from a fraction of a penny ($0.006523) to $2.29, ending the year with an astonishing growth of 35,000 percent, up 350 times in value. With its market cap north of $100 billion, ripple passed the competition to become the world's second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin.

Ripple is more known for its digital payment protocol than its cryptocurrency. In other words, ripple is a cryptocurrency that acts as a bridge currency to other currencies and doesn’t discriminate the peers whether they are using digital money or fiat currencies.

Growth in 2017: $0.006523 to $2.29, up 35,000 percent

Ethereum

Launched by a Russian-Canadian IT programmer Vitalik Buterin, ethereum is the third-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization exceeding $80 billion. Worth just $8 at the beginning of last year, ethereum has grown almost 100-fold by the end of 2017.

The ethereum blockchain has become the most common platform for initial coin offerings (ICOs). From a user’s point of view, bitcoin is just a payment system. 

2017 growth: $8 to $750, up 9,500 percent

Bitcoin cash

The original bitcoin has spun off bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, and many other bitcoin-branded cryptocurrencies. Not all of them are successful, but this one definitely is.
Having split from bitcoin in August, bitcoin cash has seen an increase in the size of blocks from bitcoin’s one megabyte to eight. Bitcoin cash is faster than mainline bitcoin and boasts smaller commission fees.
However, it is often criticized for being overly centralized. Most of bitcoin cash mining is done out of Korea, and most of tokens are owned by just two people, Jihan Wu and Roger Ver.

2017 growth from $555 to $2,550, up 500 percent  since August

Cardano

This digital token is essentially a blockchain that works both as a cryptocurrency and a smart contract platform. Its goal was to become the “first blockchain project to be developed from a scientific philosophy.”

The mysterious cardano cryptocurrency has enjoyed massive growth in the three months since it was launched on October 1.

Growth in 2017: from $0.02 to $0.70, up 35 times in value since October

Litecoin

Launched in 2011 with the goal of being the 'silver' to bitcoin's 'gold' by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate, and former Google engineer. Just like bitcoin, litecoin is generated by mining.

It was developed to improve on bitcoin's shortcomings and has earned the market support along with high trade volume and liquidity over the years. Litecoin is designed to produce a maximum of 84 million coins, four times that of bitcoin.

Some experts say litecoin should be worth exactly one-quarter of bitcoin. Now it is only worth two percent of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency.

Lee has sold all his tokens saying he no longer needs to “tie his financial success to litecoin’s success.” At the time of the sale in December, Lee reportedly enjoyed a 7,500 profit on his cryptocurrency.

Growth in 2017: from $4.33 to $233, up 5,500 percent

NDX 2018 breaking out 1st day of 2018

Today 1st trading session of 2018 NDX broke of the losing streak since it made a new high of $6535on 12/18/2017. If the pattern repeats we should see $6600+ from today's breakout.