As you all know I am not one to jump quickly on guessing the change of the overall trend in the markets. I've been bullish for quite some time now. After looking at the charts tonight however I'm seeing that we may well be in for a change in the trend or at least good reason for caution.

Here are some red flags that I believe you shouldn't ignore!

# 1 Top companies like AAPL and GOOG selling off on heavy volume after both of them having what appeared to be a stellar earnings.

# 2 Several quality stocks gapping down on heavy volume. FFIV – AMZN (closed below it's 50 day moving average today.) CF etc.

# 3 Good old fashion profit taking. There are several stocks that have gone up extremely high, extremely fast. Just take a look at some of them looking at ALL of the historical data. It just makes sense that there would be some serious profits being taken off the table here.

# 4 Though the the DOW closed positive for the week along with many Financial stocks (Signs that would typically give me some confidence of bullishness.) I cannot ignore the extreme negative sentiment seen in the NASDAQ which closed below it's 20 day moving average on Friday.

At this time I would suggest to you to be more nimble in your long positions and/or short into the rallies.

To wrap it all up I expect that the overall markets will pull back more here and that the volatility of the markets will likely increase in the near term. I know from experience that most traders in these conditions will hold thinking they'll be OK and that this is just another small pull back. I believe that this is NOT a time to be complacent and just watch stocks go down hoping that they'll bounce back as they have in the recent past.

Quick Tips:

If you do short I would suggest to wait for a rally and then look for signs of weakness after testing areas of resistance first. Just as you do not want to chase a stock up it can be just as risky to short a stock that has already gone down significantly.

If you're going to go long buying the dips consider taking profits more quickly than you usually would at those same areas of upper resistance, at the first sign up weakness.