For quite some time the $SPX chart has been able to rely on support at 5050. The market traded in an area between 5050 and 5180 for nearly a month from mid-February through mid-March. But now that 5050 level has been breached, and selling has intensified. The fact that $SPX was trying to hold that 5050 level for several days means that it has now become resistance. There are other resistance levels at 5150 and 5260, the all-time highs.
Things were rolling along pretty smoothly, with $SPX having made new all-time closing and intraday highs on March 28th. There was a little pullback at the beginning of this week, with a modest deterioration in some of the market internals, but it did not appear to be significant. In fact, by noon on Thursday April 4th, $SPX was well on its way to challenging those highs once again. Then, a Fed Governor (Neel Kashkari) made some hawkish statements and selling swamped the market.
The $SPX Index registered another new all-time closing high yesterday (March 27th) and another new all-time intraday high on March 21st. So, the bull market is still in place. $SPX has a strong support area at 5050-5180, an area where the Index traded in late February and early March. A close below 5050 would be viewed as quite negative by many traders, and we would expect that sell signals would emerge from our indicators if that happened.
This market continues to show an amazing amount of bullish strength. After having trouble at the 5180 level for about a week, $SPX broke on through after the FOMC meeting and is trading at new all-time highs once again. The 5180 levels is now support. There is further support at 5050, and since $SPX did some "work" in that 5050-5180 area for a few weeks, it is a solid support area throughout as well as the launch pad for this new leg of the rally.
This market just keeps rolling along. It is overbought, but that's probably a good thing rather than a bad thing. As the noted Smith Barney technician, the late Alan Shaw, said "The most bullish thing a market can do is get overbought and stay there." That's what this market is doing.
After gapping sharply higher on the NVDA earnings (February 22nd), $SPX slowed down a little but did not really pull back strongly. In fact, the Index made another new closing high yesterday. There is still a large gap on the chart (circled in Figure 1 on the upper right), from the post-NVDA reaction, and it would probably be a healthy thing if that gap were closed (a move down to 4983 would accomplish that).
On Tuesday (February 13th), there was a negative CPI report, and the market fell sharply in two heavy waves of selling. But late in the day, buyers came in and they have been buying the market for the entire rest of the week. So, this seems very similar to the sharp, one-day selloff of late January. It eventually amounted to nothing.
