After the past couple weeks of gains last week was the first down week for the counter rally. Technically, the confirmed 'sells' from early February haven't reversed so bears hold the edge as far as the weekly picture is the concerned. In the S&P there was a confirmed distribution week It was the same story for the Nasdaq The past few weeks saw the Russell 2000 negate what had looked to had been a bull trap, but the losses of this week haven't undone this work; 614 key support here Market Internals saw what looked to be a spike low for the Percentage of S&P Stocks above their 50-day MA with a stochastic 'buy' - but no MACD confirmation 'buy' The Nasdaq Percentage of Stocks above their 50-day MA did not spike as low as the corresponding S&P market internal, but still did enough to see a stochastic 'buy'. It too is waiting on a MACD 'buy' While the Percentage of Stocks above the 50-day MA for both the Nasdaq and S&P suggest

It was looking to be a gloomy day for bulls as stocks gapped down dramatically from the open, but a late afternoon rally restored prices and kept pressure on resistance of the nascent downtrends. For the Nasdaq the day finished just shy of the 50-day MA (the real battle zone) registering a distribution day in the process. The test for Friday is whether the new down channel is really a channel or just a brief pause as part of a broadening rally. The S&P made a strong charge from its 20-day MA to finish nestled against channel resistance but still 6 points below its 50-day MA. For those who took advantage the 20-day MA buy was a good day-trade. The Russell 2000 was another to benefit as it recovered from the 50-day MA and is well positioned to take advantage of its market leadership role. Any gains Friday will break the channel and won't leave it far from pushing new highs at 650. Perhaps the index to watch for Friday. Dr. Declan Fallon, Senior Market Technician for Zignals.com ,

Although markets regained much of the ground lost yesterday there wasn't the move to break the newly formed down channels. Buying volume in the Nasdaq was substantially down on yesterday's selling. But it registered as accumulation for the Nasdaq 100 Small Caps are best positioned to break higher Channel resistance and the 50-day MA keep the S&P pegged after its almost 1% gain. So while gains were respectable the down channels drawn yesterday are still in play for key indices. Dr. Declan Fallon, Senior Market Technician for Zignals.com , offers a range of stock trading strategies for global markets under the user id: ‘Fallond’, ‘ETFTrader’ and ‘Z_Strategy’ available through the latest rich internet application for finance, the Zignals Dashboard ; many are ranked in the top-20 for 3-month and YTD performance. Zignals offers a full suite of financial services including price and fundamental stock alerts , stock charts for Indian, Australian, Frankfurt, Euronext, UK, Irelan

With the sequence of up days that had passed it was not surprising to see the tension break to the downside. What Tuesday's selling does is establish the down channel with the 20-day and 200-day MAs to look too for support and the 50-day MA now confirmed resistance for all bar the Russell 2000. The Nasdaq saw a bear cross between +DI and -DI although trend strength had been falling during the counter rally. The Russell 2000 is showing more characteristics of a 6-month trading range than any form of trending market. A broad downleg in play back to what looks like range support around 560. The semiconductor index may be in a range of its own - although it is the weakest technically with 'sell' triggers for the CCI, ADX and stochastics as it underperforms the Nasdaq 100 The S&P didn't escape the selling as the 50-day MA proved to be stern resistance. A bear cross in the +DI/-DI switches the trend in favour of the bears. Bulls will likely look to the 20-day MAs for supp

The strong sequence of winning days was broken by what, in the end, was a very minor down day. Volume was light so bulls look to be holding out for a little more while bears were reluctant to attack. It was the same picture across indices The Russell 2000 actually managed to close a little higher as it finished on a doji While the S&P had the same doji, only it closed a little lower Swing trade the tight intraday action. Dr. Declan Fallon, Senior Market Technician for Zignals.com , offers a range of stock trading strategies for global markets under the user id: ‘Fallond’, ‘ETFTrader’ and ‘Z_Strategy’ available through the latest rich internet application for finance, the Zignals Dashboard ; many are ranked in the top-20 for 3-month and YTD performance. Zignals offers a full suite of financial services including price and fundamental stock alerts , stock charts for Indian, Australian, Frankfurt, Euronext, UK, Ireland and Canadian stocks, tabbed stock list watchlists, multi-curren

It was another good week for bulls as markets closed higher. Is there anything new to add to proceedings? Anthony V Caldaro of Objectiveelliottwave hasn't added too much to his charts. The one thing of note on the 60-min S&P was the bearish divergence in the RSI. Richard Lehman of Trendchannelmagic.com is skeptical of the advance - even if Friday's gains surprised him 2/20 -- What looked like a major turn southward on Friday morning came bouncing right back to stay within the current short term upchannels, albeit crawling along the upper lines. The resilience of this rally lends question to whether we have seen the low and are off to the stars again. I still think not and that the short term is peaking, but one has to respect theshort term uptrend until shown otherwise. 2/18 -- Another up day keeps the equity indexes at the very tops of their short term channels and highly vulnerable. The Fed in its infinite wisdom decided to announce the first tightening after the clos

This week was more about the developing bottom in the various market internals than it was about the indices themselves. The S&P is no longer overbought but has a long way to go before it turns oversold. It was the same story for the Nasdaq The Nasdaq Bullish Percents finally dropped to oversold levels but the pattern has the look of a measured move - a drop to the rising support (green) line looks a good bet for a decent bottom. The Nasdaq Percent of Stocks above the 50-day MA completed the first part a bottom with the uptick in stochastics - the MACD trigger 'buy' is next The Nasdaq Summation Index also saw stochastics drop into oversold territory, but the internal itself is in neutral territory. The S&P Bullish Percent was the odd one out as it is not oversold and the internal has only dropped out of overbought conditions. Action in the markets and market internals are showing similarities to the early part of 2007, just before markets made their final highs in Augus

It was a good day for markets as recent gains continued. The Nasdaq was able to break through its 50-day MA as technicals turned net bullish. Volume was a little disappointing and has been below the level of preceding selling. The Dow was able to do likewise, closing above its 50-day MA as its technicals turned net green. If there is a spanner in the works its the semiconductor index. On the plus side supporting technicals are net bullish, but it failed to close above its 50-day MA. It was the same story for the S&P With small caps and technology indices leading there is a good chance the S&P and Semiconductor index will follow suit tomorrow. The kicker is the lack of volume but so far the rally from March 2009 has maintained its sequence of higher highs and higher lows and until it proves otherwise it's still intact. Dr. Declan Fallon, Senior Market Technician for Zignals.com , offers a range of stock trading strategies for global markets under the user id: ‘Fallond’, ‘E

After the gains of the last few days markets took a pause at 50-day MAs. This was epitomised by the Nasdaq which closed on a neutral doji - on low volume - just below the 50-day MA. If there is a note of optimism its the pending stochastic 'buy' which will help a challenge on the 50-day MA. Performing better was the Russell 2000 which saw further gains after yesterday's break of the 50-day MA. Adding to the bullish picture was the net turn in technicals with the stochastic and ADX 'buy' following the MACD and CCI 'buys' from before. Also improving is market breadth; the Percentage of Nasdaq stocks above the 50-day MA, Nasdaq Bullish Percents and the Nasdaq Summation Index have all crossed their 5-day EMAs. None are in deep oversold territory but each are at levels where the rally could last a little longer than just the past few days. Dr. Declan Fallon, Senior Market Technician for Zignals.com , offers a range of stock trading strategies for global markets