Last week I wrote an article entitled Investors
Intelligence Sentiment Helps Bulls in which I pointed out
that sentiment had become very bearish, and that the market was more
likely to rally than decline. Since then the market has enjoyed a short
rally, but sentiment continues to be steadfastly bearish, a persistent
positive for the market; however, the market has become short-term
overbought and it has run into long-term resistance.
The bottom two panels
on the first chart show the breadth and volume versions of the Swenlin
Trading Oscillator (STO) -- short-term indicators. As you can see, both
indicators have reached the overbought side of their range. This
condition needs to be relieved, but this could happen without a price
decline -- as you can see in May and July of last year the indicators
dropped toward zero while prices continued higher. Could this happen
again this time? Let's look at a longer time frame.
The chart
below shows our intermediate-term indicators -- the PMO (Price Momentum
Oscillator), as well as the ITBM (IT Breadth Momentum) and ITVM (IT
Volume Momentum) Oscillators. They are all in the neutral zone, and have
a long way to go before they reach overbought levels, so there is plenty
of room internally for prices to move higher. By the same token, there
is also plenty of room for them to move lower, but they are not
currently acting as if they want to go in that direction.
Finally, let's look at
the price index. We can see that it has been hugging the top of the
rising trend channel for nearly four months, and it has just squeaked
above the line of resistance. This is not a decisive breakout, but it is
another manifestation of the persistent bullishness that prices have
been displaying for quite a while.
Bottom Line: Our
mechanical timing model has been bullish since November 4, 2005.
Short-term indicators are overbought and problematic, but medium-term
indicators, as well as sentiment, allow for a continued advance in
prices for at least a few more weeks.

© 2006 Carl Swenlin
Editorial Archive
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Carl Swenlin
President
DecisionPoint.com
Redlands, CA USA
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