Weekly Stock Market Commentary 3/3/17

By Lawrence G. McMillan

Overall, stocks had another very strong week, although there was certainly some hesitation yesterday. Even so, the trend remains upward for now. $SPX has moved steadily higher in a stair-step fashion all during the month of February. As a result, there are several support levels of interest. The highest is that in the 2350 - 2370 range, and below that is more important support at 2300.

Equity-only put-call ratios continue to bump along at the lowest levels of their charts, as call buying has been quite dominant. So they are in an overbought state, and it would not be hard to roll them over to sell signals if put buying begins to increase.

Market breadth has been strangely poor during the entire rally of February - and really since last July. Obviously that has not impeded the rally. Both breadth oscillators are now on sell signals after yesterday's market decline.

$VIX has not broken out to the upside, so it is still a positive indicator for stocks. For the fourth time this year, $VIX has probed up towards the 13 level, but has not been able to break through.

In summary, the overbought conditions that have been in existence for a few weeks now are beginning to mature into sell signals, but it would take an $SPX close below 2300 and a $VIX close above 15 to change the intermediate-term outlook to bearish.

This Market Commentary is an abbreviated version of the commentary featured in The Option Strategist Newsletter.