Literally! There’s a growing consensus, what Kirk calls “the worst is behind us” chatter, a wider expectation that the market has reached a bottom, either intermediate or long-term. Brett weighed in with his view last Wednesday. Everybody talking about a bottom NOW is late to the bottom bandwagon.

I’ve postulated that January was the bottom, with March being a low-volume retest, a few times in a few places, like Triple Top in the VIX and Fast Money Alert!, and the internal blog link-fest post Comments on Recent Market Action. Go ahead, read the links.

Speaking of links, a week ago tonight I posted Some Nice Bottoms to Look At, where I detailed some sectors that made significantly higher lows in March, compared to the S&P 500 index. Since then, the S&P 500 index is up 4.31%. How did the indices I highlighted do?

– the Oil Services Index is up 10.99%
– the Dow Jones U.S. Steel Index is up 5.27%
– the Dow Jones Transportation Index is up 5.95%
– the Dow Jones REIT Index is up 4.90%

Not too shabby. I’m beginning to think that looking for higher lows in indices or sectors may be a good thing to do, when the overall market is making a lower-volume retest on an intermediate(or longer)-term bottom. Got to file that thought away for the next time …

Here are some charts and my thoughts on the recent technicals in the U.S. market. You can click on the charts for a larger view.

The capitulation low was pretty clear at the time (January); it’s not often the index trades DOUBLE its last year’s daily average of shares while making a huge intraday reversal. The March lows were lower on a closing and intraday basis, but were achieved at much lower volumes, as well. That’s a “lower volume retest” where I come from, and that’s bullish. The big bull days that took place last week, took place at higher than average volume – yeah, it’s not high volume by the standards of the last four months, but that’s why I keep that little 250-day moving average of volume line on the chart! Matter of fact, there have been three really bullish candlesticks this month, all at above-average volume.

The 2-day RSI is pretty high; it wouldn’t surprise me to see a pullback or consolidation over the next few days, since in this decade, a really strong 2-day RSI has meant lower average next 5-day returns. Here is my research on the 2-day RSI.

Above is a chart of the stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading above their 50-day simple moving average. The bullish takeaways are increasing breadth, meaning that more stocks are participating in the rally, and the fact that the retest was accomplished on HIGHER breadth, meaning that only a FEW stocks were driving the index down to retest the lows.

Above is a longer-term chart of the stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading above their 50-day simple moving average. The recent lows are significant, multi-year lows, which reinforces my notion that we’ve touched an intermediate- to longer-term bottom.

Above is a chart of the stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading above their 200-day simple moving average. Again, we have increasing breadth, but this time, with a triple (quadruple?) bottom on the breadth measure.

Above is a longer-term chart of the stocks in the S&P 500 that are trading above their 200-day simple moving average. The recent lows are significant, multi-year lows, which reinforces my notion that we’ve touched an intermediate- to longer-term bottom.

Above is a longer-term chart of the CBOE equity put/call ratio. This is primarily used as a contrarian indicator, because it’s believed to represent the options positions of the more typical “dumb money doofus” in regards to stock market direction. A high number means that the “dumb money doofuses” are putting a lot more money behind bearish bets (puts) than they are on bullish bets (calls), and thus the extreme highs in this measure should be interpreted as BULLISH for the index, because “dumb money doofuses” are bearish. Keep in mind that this “dumb money” is getting extremely bearish AFTER the initial lows, and during the retest – when the horses have already left the barn, so to speak. Dumb money betting on a market crash, after the downturn has already happened? That’s BULLISH.

My take on the market action is unchanged, actually reinforced, by recent events and by the charts above. The bottom was January; the retest was March; now is a good time to ply systems based on domestic U.S. stocks, in my opinion.

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