Tuesday, January 18, 2011

at strong resistance

Here is a daily chart of the cash S&P 500 going back to the start of the bull market in March 2009. The wavy red line is the 200 day moving average while the wavy blue line is the 50 day moving average.

At its current reading of 1290 the cash S&P is about 280 points above its July 2010 low (last blue rectangle). I think this is important because the last two time the S&P advanced 280 points from a significant low during this bull market the market dropped 90-100 points back to and below its 50 day moving average (first two blue rectangles).

1290 is likely to be strong resistance for two other reasons. First, the midpoint between the May 2008 top at 1442 and the September 2008 low at 837 on the Lehman bankruptcy is at 1289.50 (red arrow). Secondly, the S&P is about 120 points above its November 2010 low. The advance from the July 2010 low halted after it had gone 120 points (purple dash rectangles).

The reasonable inference is that a drop back to or even below the 50 day moving average (green arrows) will begin soon.

Even so, this remains a bull market. Any such drop would be a valuable buying opportunity and would probably be followed by another upswing into the 1350-1400 range.

2 comments:

Bill said...

Carl, here's a good article from CNBC.

"Complacency, Fleeing Insiders Point to Earnings Season Drop"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41076255

“The S&P 500 is in line to be up for seven straight weeks,” said Art Cashin, director of NYSE floor operations for UBS Financial Services, in his widely read morning note. “That’s never happened before. Equally unique is the fact that the S&P has not fallen below its 10-day moving average for thirty straight trading days. That, too, has never happened before.”

freezinalberta said...

Carl, when the S&P drops, will the $US also drop. Or is there no correlation.
Thanks Ric