No all-clear for stocks just yet

Technical analysts warn that last Wednesday’s big leap higher doesn’t necessarily mean the worst is over — as Bespoke Investment notes, there have been no fewer than 12 days this year where the Nasdaq rallied over 3 per cent. Still, there are some positives. All Star Charts’ Willie Delwiche notes that March’s market rally was intense but short-lived, lasting only 11 trading days, so the duration of the current bounce off the mid-June lows is encouraging. Surging trading volumes in rising stocks is also a positive. However, market breadth remains concerning. Stocks hitting new 52-week lows have outnumbered fresh 52-week highs for 34 consecutive weeks. One particularly telling indicator — one referenced both by Delwiche and research firm SentimenTrader — is to examine the percentage of S&P 500 stocks hitting new one-month highs. For decades, stocks have gone on to gain over the following year whenever this number has spiked above 55 per cent, but the current market remains well shy of that number. Another bear market “killer”, says SentimenTrader, is when over 90 per cent of stocks trade above their 50-day moving average. Currently, around two-thirds of stocks are above that level. None of this means mid-June’s low wasn’t the bottom — that may well have been the case, but we haven’t got the all-clear yet.