Weekly Market Outlook – As Far As Breakouts Go, This is a Poor One
Take everything that happened on Friday with a big grain of salt. Not only was it an options expiration day, it was a quadruple witching day, which saw the expiration of monthly as well as quarterly options and futures. That explains the volume surge, but it also taints the day’s action. The market ended up making a technical break above a key resistance line, and we also saw a new multi-month high. But, that may have been entirely attributable to traders exercising their options. The buyers were hesitant the whole way up, up to and including Friday’s gain.
This is anything but a convincing move just yet. The bears still have a good shot at turning the tide in their favor.
S&P 500 Daily Chart, with Volume
Source: TradeStation
Still, where the S&P 500 ended things on Friday is where – and how – it starts matters on Monday.
To that end, while Friday technically constituted a breakout move, it’s an anemic one. The uptrend was slowing the whole week long, and the market is still good and overbought from the late-December recovery move.
Zooming out to the weekly chart of the S&P 500 puts things in perspective. The gains reaped over the course of the past twelve weeks are some of the fastest ever seen. Granted, they followed some of the fastest selling ever seen. Nevertheless, a stabilization of the pacing to more normal levels could still easily involve a pullback.
S&P 500 Weekly Chart, with Volume
Source: TradeStation
Bolstering the bullish case – though not decidedly so – is the fact that the VIX is nearing a key floor at 11.15 (blue), and within sight of another key floor at 9.0 (red). It’s not quite to either just yet though, so there’s still some room for the bulls to continue charging. The fact that the S&P 500 recently crossed above its 200-day moving average line also implies the undertow is still pushing things forward.
The NASDAQ’s chart tells the same basic story.
NASDAQ Composite Daily Chart, with Volume
Source: TradeStation
Ditto for the NASDAQ’s weekly chart.
NASDAQ Composite Weekly Chart, with Volume
Source: TradeStation
Or, maybe last week’s flawed gain is still enough to inspire investors to keep on buying this week. It’s largely a matter of rhetoric, which is largely a matter of perceived progress on the trade war front (or at least reason to assume it’s not all that relevant). To that end, Wednesday’s decision from the FOMC will significantly help shape that rhetoric.
This is very much a “wait and see” situation. Quadruple witching or not, the buyers have been very hesitant here. That’s not likely to change this week. The would-be bulls are waiting for more certainty that they can trust what they’ve seen so far. They may need to see stocks peel back and then rebound with some zeal before the trust in the effort.
Yes, we saw that happen a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn’t much of a test. The market really needs be tested before we can make sweeping conclusions. And, any new rally needs to start slower and then accelerate.
Instead, what we’ve seen are sharp rebound moves that lead to immediate slowdowns which inspires profit-taking. Ideally (and ironically), the S&P 500 would peel all the way back to its moving average lines around 2700 before we start making major calls about how strong or weak the market is here.
The last thing the bulls want to see here? More bullishness straightaway. That’s fruitful to be sure, but would drive the VIX to “too low” levels and leave the market indices far too overbought from their late-December lows to continue rallying.
We’ll have to wait and see how it all shakes out.
