Weekly Stock Market Commentary 7/25/14

By Lawrence G. McMillan

$SPX has now traded at a new all-time intraday high for the last three days, and it closed at a new all-time high the last two. Those new highs have been confirmed by some of the other indicators, but some are still on sell signals. $SPX has support at 1950, and that has proven to be very strong.

Equity-only put-call ratios remain on sell signals. They have been steadily rising for nearly two weeks.

Market breadth has NOT been strong for the last couple of weeks. One would have expected breadth to confirm the move in $SPX, and the fact that it has not is a bit troublesome.

Volatility indices ($VXST, $VIX, and $VXV) have had a very wild week. But in the end, $VIX generated a buy signal last Friday.

In summary, the indicators are not all in bullish agreement, but the trend of $SPX is still higher and -- unless that changes -- the intermediate-term picture will remain bullish. As long as support at 1950 remains intact, the trend of the stock market is up. And that is one trend we do not want to fight (in fact, we're not in the business of fighting trends much anyway -- that's called top- or bottom-picking: eventually, you're right, but how much did it cost you in the meantime?).

Sign up for The Option Strategist Weekly Updater to receive this market commentary delivered to your inbox each Friday for free.