(By Rich Bieglmeier) Subtlety, bulls may have tilted the game in their direction by gaining a field position advantage on an exchange of punts. The nice upswings occurred on stronger, more dominating volume than the down days.
While moving from the 30 to 35 yard line doesn't look like much, do it a few more times and your possession start on the opponent's side of the 50 yard line. To veteran market watchers, that's what volume represents, field position.
Bigger volume on the green days than red volume on the down days and you know that buyers outnumber sellers at the moment. That's what iStock sees on the charts from last week.
From our vantage point, the indexes have started a new uptrend. As you will see on the chart below, the NASDAQ has established a series of higher pivot lows following a higher pivot peak. The step-up action is usually a trustworthy indicator that equities are headed higher.
With a fairly heavy slate of economic reports for the week ahead, bulls and bears will have plenty of economic data to feed into their computer models. Chairman Ben Bernanke still has the QE carrot hanging from the dollar stick right in front of Wall Street's nose.
QE rumors are likely to refresh if the manufacturing news is worse than predicted. If you think about it, it's a fairly crafty way to blunt bad economic news. The worse the news gets, the more the algorithms build in digital dollar injections.
On Monday, regional economic news from Chicago and Dallas Feds will be released at 8:30 and 10:30 am Eastern, respectively. The Philly Fed was a disaster; hopefully Monday's results will be better. At 10 am Eastern, new home sales will be made public. The housing market is showing some signs of life and maybe slightly more homes than the 350,000 forecasted will have new owners.
One last, semi-scheduled news item of note, the Supreme Court will have a say this week on the price on healthcare stocks as their ruling on Obamacare will be announced by 10 am, Eastern, Thursday.
MARKET TYPE: BearVolatile
This indicator uses our longest timeframe at 13 weeks. In the last 13, our proprietary scoring has the index down more than 6%. The bear reading here and the two bulls to follow could mean a counter rally within a bigger downtrend.
MOMENTUM MODEL: Buy
As already hinted at, MO has gone green. It is especially good news with…
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Buy
For the seventh time in nine weeks, the leadership score has switched teams. This thing continues to ride along the borderline; however, when leadership and momentum line up, the tandem usually means the stock market is headed higher.