S&P 500 Index SPX The Trump Rollercoaster Ride in 2d - The post-Trump rally in the S&P has been a text-book affair, with 4 clear phases and speeds, like a car going through the gears. First gear is the lower parallel with a direct hit on the day after the election in November 2016. It rallies and then drops in gear/speed, the technical equivalent of double-de- clutching, in a rising continuation pattern, which goes on all through the following summer. Then in mid-November, a year after the paradigm shift, it picks up speed and slams into 3rd. And then right on the turn of the new year 2018 it takes off vertically, a final straight-line ascent with another perfect speed/trend/dynamic support line running right under the lows. It is about as technically perfect as you can find (outside of Bitcoin, of course).
The great 37% Trump rally then ends with a complete break/fracture as the SPY gaps down from the support line (exit all longs!) and then dances in thin air (think:Wile.E Coyote, green arrow) for a little while and then collapses and creates another gap - thereby creating an island reversal at the top - one of the most rare and powerful and reliable reversal signals of all in a major market index. (Bulkowski does not differentiate much between indices and individual stocks in this respect which is a shame as both behave quite differently. Island reversals are rare at both tops and bottoms in major market indices, usually). Whatever, the result was spectacular. A week of mayhem took the index crashing back to the lowest 2 parallels' intersection /gears 1 and 2 again - before rebounding. It finished last week right under an important near term resistance line at 2690 and which extends to 2701 on this chart - this index is still in danger of further correction whilst below here. I has to move above 2702 and hold up there through the opening 30 minutes - if it can manage this the bulls are likley to push it on tup to 2714 to begin with and then after a little while consolidating on up to 2748. Two near term potential long trade set-ups. Returning to the downside, the S&P is still vulnerable to further correction whilst unable to break and hold above 2701-4 on SPY - even if it can manage to rally and hold above 2704 it's unlikely to get much higher than the 2749-2755 range before falling away again so will not be pushing it here even if we see upside trades trigger. It really looks like it needs to come back and retest the lower parallels again in the 2555-2550 range before it can really hope to stabilise. At all costs the lows at 2539-2530 must hold up this week on any retest. And if we do see this retest unfold at any point will be looking to buy here so long as it starts to hold and fight in this range for 5 minutes or more but still ready to reverse this tentative/speculative long shot if triggered by the price action needed. Because if not and it breaks lower than 2530 it will open a good shorting opportunity back to 2488 at least and maybe 2416-2400 range at lowest before the next great rally commences. An interesting week lies ahead for the S&P and by extension the savings/retirement accounts of pretty much everyone in the world. Really want to be wrong on this one. But it just doesn't look safe whilst stuck under 2700.