By Lawrence G. McMillan
It seems that no matter how strongly the market seems to sell off early in the day, it recovers almost all of those losses by the end of the day. As a result, the $SPX chart remains bullish. Subscribers know that we place a great deal of importance on the $SPX chart's trend, and as long as $SPX holds above support, the outlook for the overall market remains intermediate-term bullish.
Equity-only put-call ratios are probably our most negative indicator. Both ratios have been on the rise since early June and both are on confirmed sell signals -- confirmed by the naked eye as well as the computer analysis programs.
Market breadth oscillators have wavered back and forth in a willy-nilly manner, to the point where they are almost meaningless right now. For the record, they both rolled back over to sell signals after yesterday's fairly negative market day.
Volatility remains an interesting story. It is low. Everyone knows that. What everyone may not know, although it's not hard to figure out, is that as long as it stays low, there is no problem for stocks. It's when $VIX begins to rise and trend higher that the problems occur.
In summary, the major trend of the market is bullish as long as $SPX remains above support. At the current time, we have sell signals from some indicators. Those are warnings that a sharp, but probably short-lived correction is possible at any time. If such a correction were large enough to violate the 2400 support level on $SPX, then bears could begin to think bigger thoughts.
This Market Commentary is an abbreviated version of the commentary featured in The Option Strategist Newsletter.
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