Markets Continue To Disappoint Bears
Jack Steiman | Oct 03, 2014 03:51PM ET
What can you say about those bears? You give them credit for trying but an F for results. At least for now. It can change, and they can take things back down, but you can't help but recognize who they are and what they've been for so long now. Sure, they've held the market flat overall for three months, and for them that's great work, but they had that 1950 up trend line taken out. They had an intraday move down to 1926. Yes, 1926! It was over. But no, two consecutive closes at 1946, and we know that four points below a two-thousand index is not a breakdown. Today the market was gapping up ahead of the Jobs Report for no obvious reason. The report came out a little hotter than expected.
The futures moved up and down, but ultimately stayed about the same, which allowed for a strong gap up. The gap up ran, pulled back some, and then ran again. We closed above the open, which is what really matters bigger picture, and now we have a close back above 1950. Yes, we're looking down at 1950 again so the bulls are happy and the bears are frowning as usual. You never, ever argue with price. I thought the bulls were done personally. I really did. The action was suggesting a possible oversold bounce due to oversold sixty-minute charts, but nothing like what we saw today. So with today's reversal you can't get emotional. Again, neither side in control. If you can find good set-ups long, you go for it. Short, you go for it. Cash is great, but if you like to play just remember big picture it's about 1950 and 2019.
Let's talk about those financial stocks. The ones that have held up best throughout the entire stock market over the past selling episodes. They exploded up today from Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C), Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC), and many others. The gap-ups were as much as 1%, with a gap-up and run just to solidify the gaps. When the financial stocks are strong, it's very hard to get bearish. To be clear, there are many areas not doing well, so it's not a market green light.
But the bears can't be happy about seeing the financial leaders rocking up on decent volume, with big gap-ups and running higher all day. It has to make you think about what's taking place. It's unclear, for sure, but it has to remove some of the short-term bearish thinking at the very least, unless they suddenly gap down big early next week. You wonder, though, about that possibility considering big money has been supporting these stocks. The biggest leaders of late are leading, once again, with technical damage against the bears, thus, be careful on getting bearish the market overall until these stocks suddenly gap lower and run down in order to wipe out today's gains. That won't come easy to be sure.
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The weekly charts will show some losses, but it's really nothing from nothing overall, since we're now back in the range on the key-index daily charts. Yes, the weekly charts look terrible. Sure, the monthly charts look terrible. And yes, we're still dealing with froth, etc. All the reasons to believe things are about to fall apart, but remember this, it's all about price. 1950 trend line. 2019 the old intraday high. The S&P 500 can be used to monitor the market for now. A 1% close above 2019, or a 1% close below 1950, gives us more insight as to what's likely next up for this market. Until one of those two levels goes away you're trading in a range with loads of whipsaw. It won't be easy. Just ease up on the emotion, and use those two numbers for big picture guidance on your trading. Also, as mentioned, watch those financial stocks as they often lead both ways.
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