Are markets as tired as we are? I don’t know about you, but every investor, analyst and trader I speak with is exhausted from all the market volatility and the unusual circumstances we are all living with. Still, the technical question for the equity market is whether the recent rebound is showing any signs of tiring.
At this point there is not enough technical evidence to say the rebound is going to fail, but I do think it’s important to reiterate what I wrote last week. Between 2800-2900 the S&P 500 index (SPX) is driving into a noteworthy resistance band corresponding to a 50-60% retracement band of the Q1 decline, which is often where rebounds stall. In addition, the declining 50-day moving average, a level every trader I know pays attention to, is at 2860—right in the middle of that retracement band.
The daily momentum indicators I follow that track two- to four-week market swings are now back to overbought levels and are within 2% of turning negative after bottoming on March 24th, the day after the market low.
Without diving too deeply into the market internals, I would point out that the ratio of NYSE downside to upside volumes began to increase this week for the first time since the March lows. As I mentioned last week, all this suggests a pullback or pause should not be surprising.
In fact, while the large-cap growth stocks pushed the SPX and Nasdaq higher this week, a broad list of stocks began to pullback starting last Friday. As an example, take what Caterpillar (CAT) did this week (-15%) after rallying to its 200-dma last Friday. By this Thursday’s close the average stock in the S&P 500 stock had corrected -8%.
So internally, a pullback has developed as banks, energy, industrials along with staples all saw some near-term selling pressure while technology stocks lifted the market indices. I’m expecting to see more equity markets churn and chop around in the resistance band highlighted above.
How far could it pull back? I view the 15-day moving average at 2672 as an important proxy for the SPX short-term uptrend, which is just above a band of support near the 200-week moving average and March bounce highs between 2630-2650.
Bottom Line: Despite all the unprecedented macroeconomic uncertainty, I would view near-term pullbacks as an opportunity to accumulate equity exposure.
