Selloff Overdone Prior to FOMC Minutes Release?

In the hour and 40 or minutes or so before the FOMC releases the minutes from their December meeting, I am using the market weakness to make some buys. I have a number of reasons for doing this, not all of which I am going to detail here. Instead, I will post a chart of the NASDAQ TRIN, the counterpart to the NYSE TRIN that I discussed a couple of days ago. TRIN numbers can be calculated for each exchange. I watch the NASDAQ closely because the NASDAQ often leads the NYSE in terms of determining speculative sentiment.

In the chart below, I use 5 minute bars over a 10 day range. My thinking, in a nutshell, is not that I can guess what the FOMC minutes will reveal, nor even how the market will react to it, but I suspect that if the news is considered bullish by traders, the market will move much more decisively than if the news is considered to be bearish.

I consider this a contrarian sentiment play, with an asymmetrical news reaction magnitude potential. From a probability perspective, it’s about a 50% play; from an expectation perspective, I think the numbers are solidly in my favor.