S&P Futures Post Largest Intraday Range in Nearly Two Months on Active Institutional Selling
By
Rennie on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Institutional investors were heavy sellers Monday. TICKscore closed at an extremely low -66, reflecting the sort of active institutional selling not seen since March. Cumulative TICK settled at -76,000, keeping the 20-day moving average in a downtrend.
Selling pressure remained selective, with the Nasdaq posting another modest down day. A three-day buy setup discussed last Friday was triggered Monday as the NDX settled down less than 0.5% while the S&P lost over 1%. In 25 out of the last 30 occurrences of this pattern, the S&P was trading higher three sessions later.
For the second time in less than a week, the Nasdaq100 closed down less than 0.5% despite 2:1 negative breadth. As noted in this column from last week, the ability of the NDX to shrug off weak breadth stats has generally led to a higher market over the next few sessions.
From a longer-term perspective, the region between current levels and SPX 1020 should represent solid long-term support. Recall that the Standard & Poors Oscillator closed over 10.0 on September 16th, and the S&P is essentially unchanged since that time. As discussed in this mid-September column, readings over 10 have a short but impressive track record at calling for a higher S&P one, two and three months later with limited downside potential (<5%). This outlook is backed up by bullish seasonals that are in play through year-end. When the S&P is YTD positive at the end of September, the market has a definitive tendency to continue trending higher into year-end (see this column from September 2nd).
S&P Futures Post Largest Intraday Range in Nearly Two Months on Active Institutional Selling
By Rennie on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 10:01 pmInstitutional investors were heavy sellers Monday. TICKscore closed at an extremely low -66, reflecting the sort of active institutional selling not seen since March. Cumulative TICK settled at -76,000, keeping the 20-day moving average in a downtrend.
Selling pressure remained selective, with the Nasdaq posting another modest down day. A three-day buy setup discussed last Friday was triggered Monday as the NDX settled down less than 0.5% while the S&P lost over 1%. In 25 out of the last 30 occurrences of this pattern, the S&P was trading higher three sessions later.
For the second time in less than a week, the Nasdaq100 closed down less than 0.5% despite 2:1 negative breadth. As noted in this column from last week, the ability of the NDX to shrug off weak breadth stats has generally led to a higher market over the next few sessions.
From a longer-term perspective, the region between current levels and SPX 1020 should represent solid long-term support. Recall that the Standard & Poors Oscillator closed over 10.0 on September 16th, and the S&P is essentially unchanged since that time. As discussed in this mid-September column, readings over 10 have a short but impressive track record at calling for a higher S&P one, two and three months later with limited downside potential (<5%). This outlook is backed up by bullish seasonals that are in play through year-end. When the S&P is YTD positive at the end of September, the market has a definitive tendency to continue trending higher into year-end (see this column from September 2nd).