Potential Rally Remains on Tightrope  

TECHNICAL VIEW.  Written Friday, August 1st, 2008:  6:30 a.m. EST

With the S&P 500 closing just above it’s week ago Wednesday’s close this past Wednesday and the Nasdaq Composite following suit, we have a series of higher lows and higher highs in both, i.e., an uptrend in place.  So I was hoping for some follow through by the Dow and other indices yesterday to confirm such.  But no such luck.  Turned out the market couldn’t overcome more depressing, recessionary-like economic data and even oil turning down didn’t help that much.  Just wonder if Mr. Market has already reached the conclusion that lower oil won’t resolve all our problems.  Nah, it’s hard to believe we’ve squeezed all the bullishness and resulting rally out of lower oil just yet.  The crude price continuing to drop should continue to help stocks, just looked like a breather to me yesterday.  Getting back to the technical view, and Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) putting the “Bull back in the Box” after a bullish “follow-through” day after Tuesday’s big up day on higher volume, IBD always recommends watching closely in the days immediately following.  So I pulled out an dog-eared IBD publication because I remember well they have a good explanation of whether a follow-through day is succeeding or not.  Yep, here it is, in William O’Neil and Gil Morales’ short 2005 book HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING STOCKS SHORT (get yourself a copy):  “In a few instances, you may have a strong follow-through day and the market will still fail.  When this occurs, it usually happens rather fast and can be figured out in a few days.”  [Schwartz:  This latest follow through day came very late, past the 4 to 10 day normal limit.]  IBD follows with this:  “If the market is making very little price progress on decreased volume, or if it abruptly begins to fail badly after a sharp, one-day rally, you are probably at another short selling point, as far as the general market averages are concerned.” 

Schwartz View:  I was prepared to push a little more money thru the windows yesterday – not too much! -- figuring a rally was started but didn’t when I remembered the first Friday of each month we get the JOBS report.  Better to wait one more day.  So let’s see what the 8:30 am data brings today (although I don’t trust the data, short term traders do trade it).  FLASH!  Data not too bad, if one trusts it.  And while yesterday wasn’t any bearish “distribution day” because of the reduced trading volume, it still looks like we could get a market failure as IBD warns us to always watch closely for.  And in spite of me possibly buying a bit more today, please remember, overall, I believe a recession is here & the market will have to factor that in & move lower over the next year or so.