Is all the speculation taking place in the market a sideshow or does it matter? I think it matters. When is the question that I don't know the answer to. But at some point the fever breaks for any number of reasons.
In the meantime there have been some changes in the market recently. I have discussed the McClellan Summation Index and how it peaked in early December and hasn't had a rally since then. It has turned lower in the last few days. This tells us the average stock is not participating.
I have highlighted the energy, banks and industrials as laggards in the year 2021 but the Transports have had exactly one up day since Jan. 15. That's not exactly an endorsement for a broad-based rally. The Russell 2000, which has been an absolute champ, is now at the same place it closed a week ago and is lower than where it was on Jan. 14.
Note the divergence, while still quite minimal, can now be seen on the chart of the cumulative advance/decline line where the S&P (brown line) has flatlined this week, while breadth (blue line) has turned down. Breadth had its first consecutive negative days since before Christmas this week.
The Dow Jones Industrials, that ancient index, has now been red for four straight days, something it hasn't done since October. This is despite Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) and 3M (MMM) and IBM (IBM) having nice up days. As a price weighted index, these two high priced stocks couldn't even help it.
The good news is it hasn't gone to five red days in a row since February, so with the Fed Meeting on tap Wednesday it probably gets a boost.
In the meantime, all those channels in the indexes are still intact, but let's look at the Invesco (QQQ) since that has been where the action has been for the last week and with all those big tech earnings on tap this week it is going to be closely watched.
Because it is still rising, the top is a few points higher than here. It's an estimation, but let's say it is around $333-$335. I am highlighting this because the Daily Sentiment Index (DSI) for Nasdaq reached 90 on Tuesday (and that was before Microsoft's (MSFT) earnings after hours).
Usually that means the runway is short. I would remind you in late August we saw the DSI get to 92 for two straight days in late August and the market soared anyway but immediately gave back 10% in September.
