The major indices all broke down this week, as the accumulated pressure that had been building up finally was released after a poor economic survey. There is resistance at the old highs (3020-3025) and now at 2940, where the breakdown took place. There is support at 2825, and then at 2720.
Both equity-only put-call ratios rolled over to sell signals. They are now trending higher and, as long as that is the case, these sell signals will remain in place.
..The equity-only put-call ratios have both rolled over to sell signals. As we have pointed out, the standard ratio started moving higher a few days ago, but the weighted ratio just turned upward in the past two days. The computer analysis programs did not confirm sell signals from either ratio until after the close on October 2nd. So, these are “fresh” sell signals. The computer analysis was influenced by the fact that some rather large numbers were coming off the 21-day moving averages of these ratios, but as it turned out even larger numbers came onto the averages, and they rose anyway – eventually setting off these sell signals...
Stocks have struggled a bit over the past week, but not to any great extent. Support has held in the 2950-2960 range. That has preserved the bullish gap on the chart that extends down to major support at 2940. If $SPX were to close below 2940, that would be a direction-changer, from bullish to bearish. But so far, it hasn't even been tested.
Once $SPX broke out over resistance at 2940, especially considering that it was a strong gap breakout, it has not looked back. There was a slight consolidation in the 2960-2980 range, and now the Index is apparently on its way to challenge the all-time highs at 3025. The chart will be bullish as long as $SPX continues to close above 2940.
Equity-only put-call ratios continue to drop and thus they remain on the buy signals that were generated in late August.
...The market seems a little tired, but there are no confirmed sell signals at this time. As an aside, though, we have always kept track of the Arms Index (named for the late Dick Arms, its inventor, but sometimes also called the TRIN). It seems to have lost some relevance in recent years, but there is one thing that is noticeable: when the 10-day moving average of Arms gets down to 0.81 or lower, a tradeable market correction is not far off. The last few times this has happened, the 10-day MA of Arms fell to that level and then rebounded sharply, leaving a “V” on its chart. It is at that level now. It is rare for the Arms Index 10-day MA to drop this low. The last few times it was this low are listed below, along with a quick summary of what happened next.
Once $SPX broke out over resistance at 2940, especially considering that it was a strong gap breakout, it has not looked back. There was a slight consolidation in the 2960-2980 range, and now the Index is apparently on its way to challenge the all-time highs at 3025. The chart will be bullish as long as $SPX continues to close above 2940.
Equity-only put-call ratios continue to drop and thus they remain on the buy signals that were generated in late August.
$SPX has broken out above resistance at 2950, and that has changed the picture to a bullish one. There is now strong support at 2940 the top of the previous trading range that $SPX traversed six times (three up, three down) during the month of August. A close back below 2940 would be negative, because that would bring $SPX back into the trading range once again.
Teh equity-only put-call ratios remain on buy signals, and now the Total put-call ratio has joined in with a buy signal as well.
Once again, $SPX has traversed the 2825 to 2950 range twice in the past week. First, it fell nearly the entire length of the range in one day (August 23rd) and then has come all the way back to the top of the range in the remaining four days. A breakout above 2950 would be bullish, but a breakdown below 2825 would be very bearish.
In a somewhat major new development, both equity-only put-call ratios have rolled over to buy signals in the last two days.
The $SPX chart remains bearish. There is support at 2825. There is probably stronger support at 2720-2730, the area of the March and May lows. As for resistance, the major resistance area remains 2940-2950, which is not only the recent tops, but is also the psychological resistance caused by the fact that the July 2019 activity look like a false upside breakout to new all-time highs.
The equity-only put-call ratios remain on sell signals (Figures 2 and 3).
The mBB indicator is probably at its best when trying to identify when to sell something that is in a parabolic rise (or when to buy something that is in freefall). Typical moving averages are too slow to catch the movements, but the mBB seem to do a good job with $SPX. In the past, we’ve often looked at using the mBB strategy on something other than $SPX, but it never seems to work all that well, although our sample size is small. I recall that we attempted to use it on Apple (AAPL) as a buy signal last year.
