It's often tempting to anthropomorphise the markets, whether describing the movements of the markets, or referring to the dark forces that some feel are manipulating the markets behind the scenes. I don't subscribe to the latter view, as I think that the force manipulating the markets is doing so quite openly, and that force is the Fed, helped by other central banks, keeping interest rates negative and flooding the world with new money in the expectation that rising asset prices will boost the real economy. I do sometimes anthropomorphise the market however, and this week the market is being a tease.
I mentioned yesterday morning that a break above my SPX declining channel would open the way to a test of the highs and that was what we got, to within three points. In terms of direction that resolved absolutely nothing, as the failure at the afternoon high on SPX was a lower high, a potential double-top, and a second test of declining resistance from the 2007 high. Here's the updated big picture SPX daily 6yr chart:
