What to Look For

End of Day Update:

Stocks woke up to early gains, but stumbled into the close. Volume was even lighter than the below average trade we’ve gotten used to. That tells us few were changing their mind and buying or selling these early gains or late losses.

Last week’s AAII Investor Sentiment survey shows an interesting result where the percentage of BOTH bulls and bears declined precipitously. That’s because both sides piled into the neutral outlook. It seems bulls have grown tired of being burned by false breakouts and bears are afraid of another breakdown rebounding in their face. We’ve been stuck between 2,040 and 2,120 for two-and-a-half months and it seems many traders are finally waking up to the realization that we don’t always go up or down. Of course the crowd giving up on a directional move means we might finally breakout out of this trading range.

Technically we reclaimed 2,100 resistance Friday but were unable to hold it through Monday’s close. The lack of breakout buying and short-covering tells us most of this buying is already behind us and we could drift lower on weak demand. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see us dip to 2,080. The real insight will come from how the market responds to this test of support. Is this just another pause before resuming the climb to all-time highs? Or will we slice through support and crash back down to the 200dma?

We should either buy the dip or sell the weakness, but we won’t know the answer for a couple more days. Trade sideways in this area for the remainder of the week and that stability tells us it is okay to hold for higher prices. But if we crash through the 50dma and the selling shows no signs of letting up, then expect us to blow right past recent lows and continue to the 200dma at 2,020.

Jani