By Lawrence G. McMillan
The levitation act is over. History shows us that the market is about to become more volatile. However, the market move can be in either direction.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The pressure that has been building is weighing more heavily on the market now. This will be the 10th day in the last 11 that “stocks only” breadth has been negative (unless there is a monster rally this afternoon). As a result, that breadth oscillators is approaching oversold territory. It’s been quite some time since anything has been oversold, as far as the major averages go.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Perhaps the first crack in the armor of this slow-motion bull market occurred this week, after Ben Bernanke spooked the market with his contention that there wouldn't be further easing.
The $SPX chart is still bullish. There is support at 1340-1350, and the 20-day moving average is at about 1350.
Equity-only put-call ratios remain on buy signals, but the weighted ratio is so low on its chart that it might be capable of rolling over to a sell signal without a lot of trouble.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (MarketWatch) — As this bull market has progressed — especially the most recent leg since the early October lows of 2011 — volatility has steadily dropped. Now it has reached a point where one might reasonably consider defensive or even bearish strategies, but not until there is at least one initial break in the bullish trend.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Ben Bernanke doesn’t have a lot of friends these days, and he lost some of those with his statements before Congress yesterday.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
Once again, $SPX made new post-2008 closing and intraday highs, and now it has finally closed above the 2011 intraday highs (oh, and yes, the Dow Jones Industrials closed above 13,000, so maybe we can stop hearing about this ridiculous and meaningless number from the media for a while). There is strong support in the 1340-1350 area. The slow-motion ascent remains in place. The last time that $SPX closed below its 20-day moving average was December 20th, 2011. The last day that $SPX even touched its 20-day moving average was December 21st, 2011.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
The S&P 500 Index ($SPX) pulled back only a little, but that was enough to alleviate some of the overbought conditions and to establish support at 1340.
Equity-only put-call ratios have begun to move sideways recently, but they remain on buy signals.
Market breadth was fairly negative from Feb 10th through Feb 15th. That was enough to alleviate the serious overbought condition that had existed in the breadth oscillators. Since then, breadth has improved again, and at this time, breadth is on a buy signal.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
In the last issue, we laid out a trading system for VXX and XIV, the most liquid short-term volatility ETN’s. VXX uses the two front-month $VIX futures contract to create an instrument that tracks near-term volatility directly, while XIV is the inverse of the same thing.
We had left a few questions open at the end of that previous article, and we aim to answer those in today’s issue. Moreover, some reader questions have been asked as well, and we will address those too, since they are important to the overall concept.
By Lawrence G. McMillan
In a brazen display of strength, the stock market — as measured by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index — held up very well this week. Tuesday was perhaps the most crucial day in that a large number of traders had pre-announced that they would become sellers upon the news that either a) the Greek debit crisis had a definitive settlement plan, and/or b) the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 13,000. Both of those things occurred on Tuesday morning, and yes the market did decline — at first.
