The setup here on the last trading day of January couldn’t be much simpler. SPX bounced strongly at the daily lower band and range support at the low yesterday and on the bull scenario SPX now breaks back above the daily middle band at 2031, and on a further break of 2064 we see a retest of the highs. On the bear scenario we see a hard fail here or at the middle band test and, on a break below yesterday’s low, the next big support level is at 1957 at the 50% fib retracement and the weekly 50 MA. SPX daily chart:
On the bear scenario it is very important that the close today be below the close on January 6th at 2002.61. The reasons why are explained in my post on 7th January and you can see that again here. The stats I collected then suggested strongly that on a close above that level the bulls have the edge at dominating 2015, and that on a close today below that level, the best that can be expected this year is a flat year. We’ll have our answer on that stat by the end of today. SPX weekly chart:
My preferred scenario here is that we see a test of the daily middle band this morning and fail hard there. It’s possible that SPX just trends down instead with no test, and bulls obviously want to break back over the middle band to open up higher targets. I’m leaning bearish here until we see a break with confidence (and daily close) back over the daily middle band.
