By Lawrence G. McMillan
After bottoming near 6300 on March 30th, $SPX has rallied strongly. The first stage was an oversold rally that carried up to resistance just above 6600. Then a temporary cease-fire was announced in the Iran war, and the market exploded with a large upside gap. That move overcame a number of resistance levels, and is now testing resistance just above 6800. There are various pockets of resistance all the way up to the all-time highs at 7000. Support is harder to quantify, because that gap extends all the way down to 6615, which should be support.
Let's start with the equity-only put-call ratios. The weighted ratio (Figure 3) is clearly on a buy signal, and the computer analysis programs agree. The standard ratio, though, is proving to be more difficult. The failure to continue to drop has caused the computer analyses to question whether this is a valid buy signal.
Breadth, on the other hand, has had no such reservations. It has been very strong since the market bottomed on March 30th, as can be seen by the large amount of green numbers at the bottom of the Table on Page 1. Both breadth oscillators rolled over to buy signals after the trading of April 2nd.
Implied volatility has dropped sharply. $VIX is back down to 19, and that is a major decline from where it was. The aging trend of $VIX sell signal is still in place but would be stopped out if $VIX were to close below its 200-day Moving Average (currently just above 18 and rising).
The two harbingers of the market decline were a rising equity- only put-call ratio (which started in late January) and a rising $VIX (which started at the end of last December). Except for possibly the standard equity-only ratio, none of these is rising any longer. That is a boost for stocks, and with new buy signals from MVB, breadth, and New Highs vs. New Lows, the overall picture has improved a lot, and bullish positions can be taken.
$TVIX$ $UVIX$
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