I know I sound like a broken record this week but the statistics and indicators have hardly changed. There certainly have been some wild moves but consider that if you had slept though the week you might wonder what the fuss is about.
Last Friday's close on the S&P 500 was 2588. Wednesday's close is 2605. Okay, that's up, but barely, especially considering the short term oversold condition and the wild gyrations. Last Friday's close on the Nasdaq was 6992. Wednesday's close was 6949. Yes that's down, but for all the angst, it's not even one percent.
And so we're still oversold in the near term. We are using up some of that by going nowhere, but that remains the case. The number of stocks making new lows has still not increased beyond the early February lows. Nasdaq saw a slight increase on Wednesday vs. last week but not a big increase. The difference with Nasdaq is it has not revisited the February lows yet so there isn't much to compare.
Speaking of the new highs and new lows, the NYSE Hi-Lo Indicator is now at 19%. Once this pushes under 15% we will have our first intermediate term indicator reach an oversold condition. Recall the short term indicators have been oversold and the intermediate term ones have not. Please note that Nasdasq's Hi-Lo Indicator is at 45% so it is nowhere close to being oversold.
Sticking with the intermediate term indicators, the Volume Indicator is now at 49%. We have gotten oversold just under 47% so this is getting closer too. But it is not there yet.
What continues to be ugly is the McClellan Summation Index. It will now require a net differential of +1900 advancers minus decliners to turn back up. This is both good news and bad news. The bad news is it is not oversold (+4000 makes it oversold). The bad news is that the Summation Index is heading lower. The good news is one strong up day in breadth would turn it back up.
As for sentiment, the put/call ratio at 134% was really high again. The ten day moving average of this indicator continues to spurt higher and I continue to be unable to see when it might turn down. The Daily Sentiment Index (DSI) which had gotten to 10% (bullish) last Friday for both the S&P and Nasdaq has come down but not that low this time. The S&P is at 16% and the Nasdaq is at 13%. Single digit readings make this bullish.
The most baffling indicator is the VIX. Is it dead? Why doesn't it budge? It is not even close to last Friday's reading and yet how many ups and downs have we had this week? Yet oddly I still believe we will see more volatility this year.
The longer it takes for an oversold rally to arrive the worse it is because we use up the oversold condition by going sideways. It's the end of the quarter on Thursday so I would prefer that this oversold rally arrive already!
