Despite the tragedy in Japan, the civil war in Libya, and the Saudi "day of rage," the markets had a nice bounce yesterday. The probability of a bounce was quite high simply because we were so oversold short-term. Lots of bullish engulfing & piercing line bottoming candles yesterday on a large variety of stocks, so the bounce should continue into next week. If it doesn't, it'll be time to head for the hills, methinks.

Unfortunately, the Venture looks weaker than most indexes. While both TSX & Venture bounced nicely off support, for the TSX, support was the top of the January range. For Venture, it was the bottom of the Jan range - top of the range support was easily broken this week. Venture has also broken its uptrend line and made a lower low - classic topping behaviour.

While the TSX and US markets seem OK for now and possibly for a couple more months, I suspect that Venture will eventually lead the rest of the market lower. I've moved up the timing of my exit strategy. Until Venture clearly starts to outperform the TSX, I'll be raising cash during times of market strength.