S&P 500 Emini Futures Candlestick: Pulls Back To The Moving Average

 | Sep 20, 2015 03:23AM ET

Monthly S&P 500 Emini futures candlestick chart: Candlestick pattern is a bull flag

The monthly S&P 500 Emini futures candlestick chart is forming a bull flag at the moving average.

The monthly S&P 500 Emini futures candlestick chart finally pulled back to the moving average after 38 months above it. The buyers at the moving average have been able to prevent further selling so far after last month’s huge selloff, but they might soon fail.

When a market is strong enough to stay above its moving average for 20 consecutive bars, the bulls are buying above an average price and are strong. Once they have stayed above for 30 – 40 bars, the rally becomes climactic. There have only been two other times in the past 50 years when the S&P 500 cash index held above the moving average for 38 months or more. In 1998, it corrected 22%, and in 1987, it fell 36%. The Emini is still Always In Long , but the odds of a climactic reversal are about about 50%. A 36% correction is unlikely, but a test below the October low of last year would be a 16% correction, and that has about a 50% chance of happening.

A climactic reversal usually creates a selloff that is sideways to down, and lasting about 10 or more bars. This means that this pullback on the monthly chart might last a year or more. One downside target is last October’s low. Next is the bull trend line from the 2009 low, and then the March 2000 high of 1618.50. At the moment, these 2 lower targets are unlikely to be reached in the current leg down, but they are close enough to have about a 30% chance of being hit before the bull resumes up to a new all-time high.

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