The broad market is rather schizophrenic right now. On Friday, the prevailing attitude seemed to be “I better buy now before Congress settles this thing and the market explodes.” On Monday, it was more like “I better sell now, because I’ll be able to buy later as this thing drags on” (“This thing” being the Congressional deadlock over the budget and the debt ceiling).
The market is getting more volatile and bearish as the combined pressures weigh upon it. These include the Congressional wranglings, the negative seasonality of early October, and the technical deterioration of our indicators.
The Standard & Poors 500 Index ($SPX) has support at 1660-1670 and at 1630 below that. There is resistance at 1730.
$SPX now has resistance at the mid-September highs of 1730. There is support at 1680, 1660, and then at the August lows of 1630. This week, $SPX generated a sell signal, based on a recent overbought condition.That is one of the few confirmed sell signals.
$SPX exploded to the upside after the Fed's announcement that they were not going to taper, with both new buying and short covering entering into the fray. With $SPX now at new all-time highs, it has positive momentum, but is also extremely overbought. This latter condition will eventually lead to some sell signals, but perhaps not right away.
The Fed’s announcement that they were not going to taper was a big sigh of relief for many traders, and the resulting buying explosion was powerful. Short covering was certainly prevalent as well. $SPX and other major indices blasted through to new all-time highs. In doing so, there were a number of overbought conditions that were triggered, but on such a powerful breakout, an overbought condition is actually conducive to higher prices – for a while.
$SPX made a strong upside push this week and that closed the downside gap from nearly a month ago. That officially terminated the "bearish" status of the $SPX chart. It's hard to say that the chart has turned bullish, though, since there is still overhead resistance at 1700- 1710. Underneath, there is support at 1660 and then stronger support at 1630-1640.
Stocks gapped higher on the open yesterday and just kept going higher all day. $SPX has now closed above its declining 20-day moving average for the first since the market topped out just over a month ago. Oversold rallies – which this still may proved to be (although it seemed stronger than that on Monday) – usually die out at about this level: just beyond the declining 20-day moving average. Chart-wise, $SPX is now at the 1670 resistance area.
At this point, the $SPX chart is still bearish, because it has a sequence of lower highs and lower hows.
The equity-only put-call ratios continue to remain on sell signals. The weighted ratio continues to move higher almost every day, thus confirming its bearishness.
Market breadth is the lone positive area right now. Both breadth indicators improved enough this week to generate buy signals.
The market continues to fluctuate, seemingly with news about Syria. Dovish news is bullish; hawkish news is bearish. However, given the fact that there are intermediate-term sell signals in effect, there is a lot more going on than merely reacting to news about possibly attacking Syria’s chemical weapons delivery systems. $SPX rallied strongly, but failed near 1650.
The stock market has continued lower, after first breaking significant support at 1680 about two weeks ago. With the further breakdown this week, below the next support level at 1640, there is a distinct pattern of lower highs and lower lows. That makes the $SPX chart bearish.
Equity-only put-call ratios are both on sell signals.
