The US indexes predictably rallied during the happy holiday week,
with Friday putting a nice punctuation on the bullish proceedings. In
fact, I caught myself looking at the TECL, NUGT and individual gold
miner positions in my trading account with a big dumb smile on my face.
Then I sold them all. Sidetracking for a moment, I have found that I
need to get back to more active trading so I am going to further fund
this account and ruthlessly trade this market in a discreet account for
pure trading.
Back on the post’s theme, the holiday volume was suspect to say the
least. I have a preferred macro theme for the intermediate term
however, and it is bullish for an extended rally pending a confirmation
of, or more likely a cleaning out of last week’s bullish enthusiasm.
However, for the intermediate bull theme to come about, the market
probably needs to take a break first and do some consolidating or bottom
testing to build a good rally platform. Otherwise it could be going on
to double top city and a more bearish intermediate view.
Both SPX and NDX are at visual resistance zones after retracing 50%
and 38% respectively of the sharp holiday rally. Upside limits are 1425
on SPX and 2670 on NDX. If they get above there then the immediate
term analysis will probably degrade on a risk vs. reward basis. So Mr.
Market, you are advised to take a dump soon and do some bottom testing
or at least consolidate with a downward bias.
The lows from the end of May are the absolute parameter on a new bear
market or lack thereof. Lose the May lows and these markets would be
broken. Above them and the cyclical bull market lives on. So we want
to see the leader, NDX not make a lower low to May. In fact, one signal
we might look for is a higher low (to the early November low) by NDX
while SPX potentially makes a lower one on any short-term correction
that may whip up. This would be a positive divergence by a leader and a
good bull signal.
The NDX failed (and remains below) the 200 day moving average, which I
think moved some bears to call ‘bull market over’. But the moving
averages are trumped by lateral support, which held. Let’s see how the
short-term plays out, because it is important to the intermediate
picture.
