Volatility

By Lawrence G. McMillan

Stock prices continue to rise, in general. There does seem to be a slowing of the upward momentum, but considering how overbought the market had gotten, much more was expected of the bears.

The $SPX chart remains bullish, in that it is rising, and all of its trend lines are rising as well. The index has still not closed below its rising 20-day moving average since early September -- a period of nearly two months.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The $SPX chart in Figure 1 is still a bullish chart. The moving averages are all trending higher. There is support at 2544 (this week's intraday reversal low), with more important support at 2510 and 2480. A close below 2510 would be somewhat bearish, and a close below 2480 would change the chart to an outright bearish one, in my opinion. But at current levels, there is room for a modest correction without completely rolling over into a bear market.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) has now made a new all-time closing or intraday high on 15 of the last 17 trading days. When the bears fail to capitalize on a selling opportunity such as Thursday, the bulls come back with a vengeance. The $SPX chart remains positive, with support at 2510.

Equity-only put-call ratios have turned bullish once again. Both of these ratios have begun to decline again, and when put-call ratios are declining, that is bullish for stocks.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The major indices pushed to new all-time highs again this week, although at a snail's pace.  The $SPX chart is in a strong uptrend, and that is simply bullish.  In the traditional sense, there is support at 2510, 2480, and 2400.

The equity-only put-call ratios have both rolled over to sell signals. These sell signals are confirmed by the computer programs that we use to analyze these charts, as well as by the naked eye (well, sort of).

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The strength of the market was on full display this week. The indicators are still in bullish agreement with this move, but there are a couple of potential overbought sell signals setting up.

One overbought condition is that $SPX is above the "modified Bollinger Bands" shown in Figure 1. There is support at 2510, 2480, and 2400.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

Finally, there has been some follow-through movement to the upside. $SPX has made new all-time closing and intraday highs on the last two days. This keeps the $SPX chart bullish, of course. There is still the strong support at 2480 (the level from which the last major breakout occurred), and now there is also support at 2488 -- last week's lows.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

On Monday, September 11th (a date we will never forget), $SPX broke out to new all-time highs. There hasn't been a lot of follow-through after that, but those highs have been retained.

The importance of these new highs is that they distinctly turn the charts positive. The $SPX chart now has support at 2480 (the old highs), as well as at 2460 and every 20 points down, all the way to 2400.

By Lawrence G. McMillan

Late last week, $SPX broke out above a minor downtrend line, accompanied by buy signals from several indicators. It appeared that a move to new all-time highs was imminent.

However, those plans have stalled. $SPX did challenge the previous highs at 2480 but was unable to break through. This week it has struggled. So, at this time, the $SPX chart needs to break out over 2480 to be classified as strongly bullish. Otherwise it's in a trading range, from roughly 2400 to 2480.