By Lawrence G. McMillan
Tuesday's big rally was enough to swing things over to the bullish camp, heading into the year-end. The continued bullishness has carried the market to the point where it has now reached the traditionally bullish Santa Claus rally time frame: the last five trading days of one year and the first two of the next.
The $SPX chart is confined by two trend lines (Figure 1). A breakout through either trend line should propel a sizeable move in the same direction.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
With this newsletter, we have reached 20 full years of publication. Hopefully, there will be 20 more! As far as the stock market goes, it was a pretty wild year, but not necessarily out of character with the ever-increasing volatility that the market has exhibited much of the time in recent years. Ever since the manipulated interest rate environment and accompanying bull market of 2006, where $VIX repeatedly dipped below 10, markets have been volatile. It began with the volatility explosion in February 2007 and continues to this day.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
For nearly two weeks, the market – as measured by the S&P 500 Index – had mostly declined. From a high of 1,261 on Dec. 7, the index fell to nearly 1,200 by last Monday, Dec. 19. As one might imagine, such a decline created an oversold condition.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The $VIX settlement occurred this morning (Wednesday, 12/21/2011) at the opening. It was a rather unusual settlement - something we've not really see before. Yesterday (Tuesday), at the close of trading, $VIX was 23.22, but the December $VIX futures settled at 23.80 – a 58-cent premium. The two, by definition, converge at the "a.m." settlement at Wednesday's opening. This in itself is a bit unusual, seeing that large of a premium with essentially no trading time remaining.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The oversold conditions, coupled with some positive news out of Europe, created a buying vortex yesterday. This was so strong, that it was (of course) a true "90% up day" in "stocks only" terms and a "90% up volume day" in NYSE terms. So, while the rally was enjoyable, it has already created an overbought condition.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Rather heavy selling over the past six days (with the exception of last Friday) has resulted in a deeply oversold condition. That should produce a short-term rally, but after that the picture is far less rosy.
The bigger picture in $SPX shows two converging trendlines: a rising trendline connecting the October and November lows, and the declining trendline connecting several tops since July (which is near the 200-day moving average a major provider or resistance to date). Both are significant.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Despite some position seasonality and oversold conditions, the bulls have not been able to gain a foothold, as the stock market has dropped sharply over the past three days.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (MarketWatch) — Despite plenty of volatility, the stock market – as measured by the Standard & Poors 500 Index — has been unable to break out of its rather wide trading range. That might remain the case for the remainder of this year, but it is likely that early 2012 will see a significant move.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The broad stock market -- as defined by $SPX -- had a major failure today in that it could not break through the upside resistance at 1265 (the approximate location of the 200-day moving average).
Equity-only put-call ratios are now struggling to remain on buy signals.
Market breadth has continued to be a fairly accurate short-term indicator, and the breadth indicators are technically on buy signals even after very negative breadth today.
$VIX has become rather docile, and seems to be calling for more of a trading range environment.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
This week's rally has improved the status of many of the indicators, but not necessarily the chart of $SPX itself. A breakout above resistance and the 200-day moving average at 1265 would be required in order to turn this chart positive.
Equity-only put-call ratios have turned bullish. Market breadth swings the most wildly as these volatile moves occur. Currently, breadth indicators are on buy signals and are not yet overbought.
