Weekly Commentary 3/16/2012

By Lawrence G. McMillan

The stock market decisively broke out to the upside on Tuesday, thereby confirming (in my opinion) that the volatile move we have been talking about would take place on the upside.

The equity-only put-call ratios are wavering around at more or less constant levels and aren't giving any clear signal right now.      Market breadth hasn't been particularly great over the past three weeks, although it did revive enough this week to push the breadth indicators back onto buy signals.

Volatility derivatives ($VIX and $VXO) continue to drop rather sharply.  That is bullish for stocks, as long as $VIX stays below 17.

In summary, the price chart of $SPX is bullish and that's all that seems to matter right now.  There are overbought conditions, though, and the market is starting to get farther from support (1370 and below) and thus any correction to the support levels could be rather painful, even though it wouldn't necessarily be a change of trend. 

 Sign up for The Option Strategist Weekly Updater to receive this market commentary delivered to your inbox each Friday for free.