Year-end buying bias, along with the buy-Monday bias, helped seal a low volume rally today.
Officially, the Dow industrials advanced 0.8% on NYSE volume of 4.6 billion shares, while the NASDAQ rose 1.2% on 1.85 billion. The leadership profile remains positive, with 500 stocks making new highs versus 94 making new lows.
The short term momentum oscillators are on the cusp of turning positive, though remains negative for now, non-confirming the bullish stance of the AlphaKing Trading Indicator for the NASDAQ (while the Russell 2000 AK Trading Indicator remains negative.) We have no new trades at this time.
Sorry for delay in publishing tonight’s update. The stock indexes continue to inch higher, with opening surges soon running into trouble, as if 10 traders are running the market and their opening exuberance soon runs out of steam for want of other trades. One day the open pop is to the upside, the next to the downside.
The complete absence of any significant follow-through is the reason for the sideways churn that has becalmed the financial markets for nearly three months now, and today’s rally push is left in the same predicament, where an absence of any serious continuation of the advance will leave the indexes trapped in the sideways churn trading range. Volume today was way pitiful, calling into question the longevity of the move.
401K investors should be invested in a money market fund.
Kevin Wilde, Chief Trading Strategist AlphaKing.com.
