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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (46827)	1/22/2002 7:56:53 PM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Thanks TL! I think I will go ahead and put mine on the front porch so he won't have to knock and bother me. IT is the knocking that scares me and not showing of my boobs. "If ya seen two ya seen 'em all." :-) Hey man! Good to see ya, dealie

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (46827)	1/23/2002 12:23:49 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

S&P on "An Important Test" ================================= JANUARY 22, 2002 TECHNICAL MARKET INSIGHT • From S&P By Mark D. Arbeter, chief technical analyst for Standard & Poor's An Important Test The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are nearing key support levels The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are approaching the lower boundaries of their recent trading ranges as the six-week consolidation continues. The action of late has not been particularly encouraging as the recent market leaders have rolled over and there has been some increased selling pressure by institutions. ...This sloppy action calls into question whether the December lows will hold and opens the door for a further retracement of the gains since the market lows in September. The important price lows in December that are key support levels for the market short-term are 1114 on the S&P 500 and 1920 for the Nasdaq. Calling the market during a trading range can be tricky because many times price ranges can be extended without any real damage. One way to alleviate getting whipsawed during a test of a trading range is ... to give the market some room below the most recent low and ... to also give the market time to test and reverse course. While there are no hard and fast rules, we would not want to see the S&P 500 break below 1114 by 1% or greater for two days or longer. ... A little more room is given to the more volatile Nasdaq and we would NOT like to see the index drop 2% to 3% below 1920 for longer than two days. If the recent index lows are taken out, there is plenty of good support below. ... The S&P 500 has chart support between 1054 and 1111, which was a sideways consolidation during October. ... A typical 50% retracement of the move since September comes in at 1060.86 while a 38.2% retracement lies at 1088. Both these retracement levels represent potential support and it is positive that they happen to lie within a good area of chart support. The more types of support in a given area, the more likely the market will hold when it reaches this range. Potential support for the Nasdaq is not quite as close but this is only the case because the index has advanced much more sharply since the September lows. ... Chart support from the October consolidation lies between 1628 and 1793. ... A 50% retracement of the recent advance comes in at 1743. Volume measures on both the Nasdaq and the NYSE have been negative of late. ...There have been some distribution days (lower closes on increasing volume) of late and indicate that institutions have been dumping stocks. ... Up/down volume models on both indexes have turned negative on a short-term basis once again. ... On Jan. 16, the down/up volume ratio on the Nasdaq was 7.8:1, representing a fairly heavy dose of selling pressure while the same measure on the NYSE was 4.4:1. ... If this type of selling continues into next week, the market will surely break out of its recent trading range to the downside. Sentiment for the most part continues to be tilted towards the bullish side. ...The Investors Intelligence poll of newsletter writers is showing 51.6% bulls and only 24.7% bears. ... Shorter-term sentiment polls such as Market Vane, Consensus, and AAII were all above 50% bulls as of last week. On the flip side, sentiment in the options market has turned decidely bearish. ... On Jan. 16, the CBOE total put/call ratio hit 0.91 with the 30-day p/c ratio at 0.76, the highest since October. ... There have also been some daily CBOE equity p/c ratios above 0.70, a bullish reading. As we have pointed out over the last couple of weeks, choppy, sideways action is the norm following a strong advance off a major bear market low. It will be important for the market to turn next week to keep this sideways pattern intact.