S&P 500 Analysis

It is 3 weeks as I posted a chart in my "S&P 500 Rally Up" post where I pointed to the overbought condition of the market and expressed a possibility of sideway move that may turn into a correction. Since then the Nasdaq 100 and many other indexes have been moving in sideway corridor. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial (^DJI) indexes pushed by Financial and Housing sector (see my previous week "Financial Sector" post) started their sideway move a week later on August 3, 2009.

Now, when it looks like financial sector is not pushing S&P 500 and DJI indexes up and is not holding the rest of the market in sideway corridor we may ask: "could be expect a correction down?"

There are always two answers in stock market technical analysis: a) market can go up, and b) market can go down. So I decided to summarize a few points that favor those answers  from my prospective.

In favor of up move:

1. In some cases when the market is in sideway corridor for a prolonged period of time it can release itself from the overbought condition it was when it entered the sideway corridor. Furthermore, I would say that the Nasdaq 100 and some other indexes are not as overbought as they were on July 23, 2009. We saw some negative money flow on those indexes and they do not need a strong correction down to resume a recovery.

2. The stock market is far from its crash bottom and we will continue to have good and positive economic reports as we had over the last month. At the end of 2009 the public companies and economists “purposely” have set their expectation levels too low (they expected further crash and weak market). As a result, now, and I think for the prolonged time we will have good economic reports that will "exceed expectations" and these good news may push market, indexes and stocks up.

In favor of down move:

1. I think the stock market is still overbought after its last rally up.

2. The volume surge on August 5-7 in the S&P 500 Financial sector is very big and could mark end of the rally in this sector. The Nasdaq Other Financial index that represents smaller financial companies is already almost 5% down from its top on August 7, 2009.

3. If the “Health Care Reform” gets green light we may see investors pulling money out from the health insurance companies.

There could be other points, yet, coming down to the technical analysis on chart I may say that the sentiment is more Bearish. Majority of technical indicators on S&P 500, DJI and Nasdaq 100 indexes suggest negative trend (see S&P 500 chart below). Still, on the same chart you may see Bullish Stochastics and RSI. I would say, if the indexes break their lower corridor level that would confirm a correction and at this point of time more odds on this side. Yet, if the indexes run above their upper corridor border we may not see a correction at all.

S&P 500 chart with Technical Analysis of SBV, MVO,
Advance/Decline Oscillator, MACD, RSI, Stochastics and McClellan Oscillator