I spent Friday evening thumbing through the index charts, and I’m afraid I will offer the same overall conclusion I had a couple of weeks ago: specifically, that the markets were poised to blast off. Mercifully for the one or two bears left on the planet, the last time I speculated about this possibility, Turkey, and then China, shook things up. However, this brief resurgence of trade war fears has swiftly abated, and most indexes stand, once again, at the doorstep of yet another big push higher.
Looking first at the Major Market Index, it has the same characteristics as everything else I am seeing: (a) higher lows; (b) selloffs that are increasingly shallow; (c) a well-formed base. This index is a bit different than most since it is so much lower than its own lifetime highs, but the base is potent nonetheless.
The S&P 500, however, is just one good day away from lifetime highs. The horizontal purple line shows the prior peak, set in January. The couple of weeks of fierce selling we had from January 27 through February 9 has finally healed.
The Russell 2000 has a different look, in that it is more of an ascending channel that a large saucer-type base. To my eyes, it seems prone to weakness more than the Industrials, since it is relatively high in its own channel.
The Dow Industrials got hit hard by the China trade war fears, but it exploded higher once the “delegation-is-on-their-way” news hit the wires. The red arrow marks the highest level for this index since the most-January 26th tumble, and as the green tint shows, we’re getting very close to it.
The NASDAQ Composite more closely resembles the Russell than the Industrials. With powerhouse Apple leading the way, it shows no sign of fracturing.
Lastly, the Dow Composite has almost perfectly sealed up its gap from January. As with the S&P, it is just one good day away from highs never before seen in human history.
Anyway, I don’t get my jollies out of showing such bullish patterns, but I’m afraid the truth outranks my jollies. Turkey has been swiftly forgotten, and China seems to be kowtowing to Trump’s intransigence. We are only a few days from crossing the record for the longest bull market in history. It seems almost inevitable that it’s going to happen.
