Is it time to panic?

We are in freefall at the moment, so what to do next? As indicated on the chart, I just went long the S&P futures, am I nuts? Maybe, it is never easy to buy into declines like this, and also not always the correct thing to do. Why am I doing it?

First, my long term model is still in the long side only mode, so I am looking to buy short term weakness within that. If you look at the red line on the chart, specifically in the first sub-section, we are at a very low level. This is a proprietary indicator that measures advancing issues on the NYSE in a unique way. It has rarely been this low in recent years. Second, I mostly follow my systems with small amounts of discretion thrown in along the way. I have no way of knowing when an individual trade will win or lose, and when I thought I have known this in the past, I have usually been wrong. As a result, I rarely pass a trade due to my opinion about the outcome. It is true, that if this is in fact a trend change, this trade will lose.

From a short term basis, there is no reason to buy into days like this because it is clearly a news driven down trend day and these types of days can really get away quickly. The system that generated this trade is about a 10 day hold on average, and often the first few days go against the position. As hard as it is to watch this adverse move, it is typical of these types of trades.

I am constantly trying to find ways of filtering out bad trades like this one "might" be, and have never been able to find a conceptually correct way of doing so. As a result, I just take them as they come up and hope for the best over time. Ten of the last 11 in this system leading up to this trade have profited, so there is a good track record with it.