Anyone know what's up with that random spike in the NYSE Composite today between 2:00pm and 2:30pm EST? Is my data wrong? I also get a long upper wick on the NYSE Composite daily chart from another source, thereby corroborating this anomaly. Ironically, this spike to the upside puts the NYSE at the upper bound of the channel that it currently resides in, which corresponds today to an upper-bound touch of the S&P-100, as well as a weakly-defined upper-bound touch from the Nasdaq Composite. The Nasdaq Composite high today does seem quite close to the high achieved at the end of 2004/first trading day of 2005.
Is this perhaps a confluence of resistance indicating a possible low risk entry for a reversal to the downside? Or, alternatively (the less likely scenario it would seem), do we break out above these semi-significant resistance points and rally like crazy tommorow?
Many people are bullish from here - we have come a nice way since the lows earlier in the year. Is this a possible contrarian short signal?
However, the major upper bound of the diagonal (yet to be determined as ending or leading) on the S&P-500 has not been reached, yet - not that we HAVE to reach it to find a longer-term bearish scenario, and perhaps to bounce off of it it again would be suspicious on the bear side, longer term (i.e. leading diagonal; translation: bubble - once again moving significantly past the rough long term estimate of 10% annual equities market growth).
More significant it seems, in the short term (should a reversal from here occur), is the lower support channel on the S&P-100, starting with the late October 2004 low - oh so clean, and touched numerous times already! And yet, the rate of growth defined by this trendline is close to the magic 10% number - approaching long term rationality..
It just seems risky to open new long positions or add significantly to existing long positions at these price levels (without stop losses at least!) Let's see who wins from where we are now - bulls or bears. I 'predict' the bears will win for at least a little bit from here, but as we all (should) know, the predictions mean squat - the market is always right. I hate putting my neck out like this but the bulls are relentless it seems!
I hope this helps someone make money, or not lose it. But having said that, don't listen to me, do your own analysis, and define your own risk.
One interesting scenario would be a pull-back from here, later leading to a slow net move to the upside for the remainder of 2005 (to maintain the year XXX5 perfect record of positive stock market gains!) followed by some nice longer term downside with increased volatility.
Good trading to all.
-ei