With the Dow Jones Industrial Index yesterday having broken into positive territory for the year to date and the S&P 500 Index having accomplished this a few days ago, the jury is out on the near-term direction of the market. Notwithstanding a five-day winning streak for the S&P 500, the fact that volume has been contracting on up-days and expanding on down-days is complicating the outlook.
Kevin Lane (Fusion IQ) refers to the chart of the S&P 500 below, remarking that as long as the Index is holding above a minor support zone in the 1,116 to 1,112 area (red line), the bias remains up. “A trade below this support area would lead to a minor pullback towards the 1,105 area (lower green line). Below 1,105 the next level of support would be in the 1,000 region,” said Lane.
Source: Fusion IQ, March 4, 2010.
The February lows are also key levels and one should, in my opinion, give the uptrend the benefit of the doubt unless these levels are breached. The levels are: Dow Jones Industrial Index (9,835 vs current level of 10,446), S&P 500 Index (1,044 vs current 1,124) and Nasdaq Composite Index (2,100 vs current 2,292.) Adam Hewison (INO.com) highlights these levels in his latest video analysis of the principal US stock market indices which can be accessed here.
“… major stock market indices have rallied from their rising 200-day MAs and some are beginning to test their recovery highs. This means investors with stock market long positions can sleep at night, provided that the February reaction lows are not retested, let alone broken, added David Fuller (Fullermoney) from across the pond.