Canary In the Copper Mine: S&P 500 Recap

Copper had been leading the way for the S&P but now its diverging, this plus the inability of the S&P to make new highs and with 80% plus greater stocks over their 20dma leads me to believe a big correction is coming to at least test the March lows.

The week opened with a small gap higher and continued upward for several minutes to test Friday's high before reversing. The down move lasted about five points before bouncing just after 10:00 am. After the brief bounce the S&P traded sideways until about 12:30 pm at which point some sellers hit the index and took things down sharply but only a few points. On a tight range day such as this (less than eight points), a three or four point move seemed large. But as we have seen so often during the last year or two, buyers came into the market during the last hour and the market came off the lows to close the session almost exactly in the middle of the intraday range.

In the beginning of March we had 4 failed attempts to get up to or over 1340 mark. We have failed 4 times so far. If you believe in pattern repetition we are headed down to test the March lows.

For the S&P Index there were 251 components advancing and 226 components declining. On the NYSE 3,018 issues were traded with 1,577 advancing issues and 1,320 retreating issues, a ratio of 1.19 to one advancing. There were 266 new highs and 15 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 253 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 13 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 566. The Net Advancing data still indicates a bullish trend.

Advancing volume was higher at a ratio of 1.04 to one. The closing TRIN was 1.18 and the final tick was 738. The five day average of TRIN is 1.26 and the ten day average of TRIN is 1.18. The NYSE Composite Index gained 0.15% today while the S&P gained 0.03%.

For the NYSE, relative to the previous 30 session average, volume was -27.25% below the average. Of the last 15 sessions 4 sessions ended with volume greater than the previous rolling 30 day average volume. Of the last 30 sessions, 20 sessions ended on a positive tick, 7 of last 10. For the S&P , the day's volume was 75.4% of the average daily volume for the last year. Volume was 87.5% of the last 10 day average and 85.3% of the previous day’s volume.

Total tick for the day was 37,000 and the average tick for the day was 24. There were 25 ticks greater than 600 and 30 ticks more extreme than -600. There were 1 ticks greater than 1000 and no ticks more extreme than -1000.

The volume was very light but clearly there is surge in volume on the early afternoon sell-off and a much weaker increase in volume during the late day buying. Looking at the Breadth Indicators we find  some weakness. Notice that the New High/New Low ratios are slipping.

70% of the S&P are above their five day moving average, 79% are above their 10 day average, 83% are above their 20 day moving average, 71.2% are above their 50 day moving average, and 86.8% are above their 200 day moving average.

Breadth was weakly positive and the broad NYSE Composite Index once again outperformed the S&P . But the data is really quite neutral and doesn't add much to what we know about the market direction. There are hints we are headed down. Protect profits!

Sectors stronger than the S&P for Monday:
- Basic Materials -- Outperformed by +74%.
- Energy -- Outperformed by +3%.
- Industrials -- Outperformed  by +13%.
- Consumer Staples -- Outperformed by +17%.
- Health Care -- Outperformed by +75%.
- Consumer Discretionary -- Outperformed by +20%.

Sectors weaker than the S&P for Monday:
- Financials -- Underperformed by -21%.
- Technology -- Underperformed by -34%.
- Utilities -- Underperformed by -9%.