by Trader Mark, Fund My Mutual Fund
One thing you want to see as a technician is a constantly higher price on each upward thrust. On this last rebound from 1295, the S&P reached intraday 1330 yesterday (and briefly higher today). However it obviously failed to reach the last peak point over 1340. If there is no imminent reversal back up in the coming 1-3 days, I'd offer that this reversal day could be important technically as this would be the first time we've seen the move up after a drawdown of any sort (which have been extremely rare the past half year) not surpass the old high.
The S&P 500 currently sits at the 20 day moving average, just as did when we came back from holiday last Tuesday. Those pressing against this market want to see this level obviously break and then a new low formed (i.e. break last week's S&P 1295). Then the pattern of 'higher highs and higher lows' is broken - and a much more cautious stance is warranted. Very tricky here in the short term because this is the one week of the month that economic news actually matters (ISM Services, and monthly employment data) so we are prone to quick moves off of macro news.
But to the earlier point, the lack of reaching to a new high on this bounce could be something we look back in retrospect in a few weeks as a very important development.
As an aside, the NASDAQ has the same issue...
