Despite some indications this week that the market might break down, it did not do so. In fact, the Standard & Poors 500 Index ($SPX) held near the previous support level of 2070, thereby strengthening that level as market support. On the upside, there is resistance at the old highs of 2135, so $SPX remains locked in the 2070-2135 trading range.
Not much has changed in the market in the last week, with one possible exception: was yesterday's breakdown below near-term support significant, or was it just another meandering that will have no follow-through? Based on recent history, it's probably the latter (no follow-through). More than likely, we are still in a trading range for $SPX, between support at 2070 and resistance at 2135.
Due to both business and vacation travel this summer, we are going to alter the newsletter publication schedule for both June and July. This information supercedes the schedule stated in the previous issue of this newsletter.
There has been a rather large amount of hoopla about two new companion ETF’s that are designed to track the cash levels of $VIX – the CBOE’s Volatility Index. There have been articles on Bloomberg, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, and Yahoo! Finance, not to mention the web sites of the principal’s involved: NASDAQ and Accushares.
$SPX remains stalled just below the all-time highs, which are at 2135. The support at 2070 (the lows of March and April) remains in place.
Equity-only put-call ratios are technically still on sell signals. But as you can see from Figures 2 and 3, they have been drifting sideways for a couple of weeks.
Market breadth oscillators gave sell signals prior to Tuesday's market decline. They remain on those sell signals, despite the broad market's attempt to recover.
The Striking Price column in Barron’s (May 4, 2015) discussed the fact that there are going to be weekly listed $VIX futures and $VIX options.
Everything is grinding to a halt in this market, and that is probably a sign that an explosive move lies in the not-too-distant future. $SPX has support at the old highs (2120). If that should fail, there should be a good support level at 2070.
Equity-only put-call ratios remain on sell signals, according to the computer programs we use to analyze these charts. However, if one looks at Figures 2 and 3, it is obvious that these ratios have just been trending sideways for the past few days.
In the April 30th Hotline, we noted that “stocks only” cumulative breadth did make new all-time highs twice recently. Those two dates were April 15th and April 23rd. It has not made another new all-time high since then, although it is only about 1,700 issues below its high right now – so another strong upside day today could produce another new all-time high for cumulative breadth.
The broad stock market has continued to frustrate both bulls and bears by remaining within a trading range for quite some time. However, today, $SPX closed at a new all-time high and thus is on the verge of an upside breakout. While this produced much glee on CNBC, there could be problems once again if this breakout is not confirmed.
The simplest confirmation would be another $SPX close at new all-time highs, and this time above the all-time intraday high at 2125.92.
