Thursday, March 12, 2009

S&P 500 Nears Resistance

The S&P was recently at 737, up 2%.
From Bespoke Investment Group (late Wednesday):

While the S&P 500 traded above 730 at one point today, the rally failed to hold. By the time the closing bell rang, the index finished a point and change higher, which these days equates to about 25 basis points. Technicians attributed the sell-off to resistance at the intraday lows (741) reached last November. Going forward, this will be a key level to watch. We would note, however, that on the way down, the S&P 500 only managed a minor bounce on its first and only successful test of this level in late February. As a result, the bulls are hoping that it's as porous on the way up as it was on the way down.

Resistance

And from Barron's:
...That is the short-term view. Looking out to the longer term, I think that the transition period from bear to bull will become more evident if 805 is reached. Whereas the trend over the past 17 months has clearly been down, a nice rally now would confirm that the trend finally is flattening out (see Chart 2).

Chart 2

[GT2]

That is hardly a view that the market will begin a true bull market. Rather, it is a view that the transition process will continue into its next stage of churning sideways. Many months later, we could expect that churning to turn into a bull market....MORE