By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) has been struggling this week. It hasn’t been going down, but it’s been apparent that it was too overbought to go up much, either. Then today, Fed Chairman Bernanke announced the de facto beginning of QE 3, which propelled financial assets of all sorts (except the U.S. dollar) to rally. SPX moved 20 points off its lows; T-Bond futures soared more than two points, Gold rallied $60, and so forth. You get the idea.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Friday was another boring market day, with $SPX in a 6-point range. The reality of the situation seems to have struck $VIX traders, though, as that index lost another 8% on Friday. The downward trend of $VIX is bullish for stocks, but this is beginning to look a big overdone. I would have to say that $VIX at 18 (and $VXO below 17) is certainly in overbought territory.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market continues its slow steady march upward. The $SPX chart is becoming stretched, though, and is somewhat overbought.
The equity-only put-call ratios continue to decline. Thus, they remain on buy signals, but they are not far from reaching the lower regions of their charts, which would make them overbought at least.
Market breadth has been steadily positive, and has reached an overbought state as well -- from which sharp corrections often occur.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market, as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and other major indexes, continues to plow forward at a relatively slow, steady pace.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The over-riding characteristic of this market since the first of the year is boredom. Daily ranges are tiny, and volatility is practically non- existent. This is ironic, of course, since at the end of last year, so many traders were certain that volatility would increase dramatically once the holidays were over.
The $SPX chart is in an intermediate-term uptrend. The dominant trend line is the rising one that connects the October and November bottoms.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market, whether measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index or any other major index, has become downright boring.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Monday was a very boring market day (again), which did nothing to chance the technical situation at all. Breadth was actually fairly positive, so the breadth oscillators remain on buy signals, and the oscillators are modestly overbought. The equity-only put-call ratios remain strongly on buy signals as well. $VIX did rise a little, but not enough to change the fact that it is still in a downtrend, and that – coupled with the fact that the $VIX futures term structure is still positively sloped – is bullish.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The stock market finally was able to take advantage of the favorable seasonal pattern and break out to the upside. It is now imperative that $SPX take out the October highs at 1293. It would be bearish if $SPX closes back below 1260.
Equity-only put-call ratios remain on buy signals.
Market breadth (advances minus declines) has been acceptable but not strong. This is a potential problem, and is one of the few negative divergences.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The new year started with a strong rally, although the reasons for the rally were less than stellar. Basically, I think one can say that the reason investors bought on Tuesday was that it was the first trading day of the year.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (MarketWatch) — The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is hovering near 1,260 once again. What makes this significant is that this is the area not only of the 200-day moving average of the Index, but it is also the point where the index meets the downtrend line connecting the recent market tops.
