As I see it today was nothing but a battle over control of the 200-day moving averages on the indices. The S&P 500 and Dow popped over their 200s early in the session and were cruising along until selling kicked in just before 2:00. By the close only the Dow remained above its 200 DMA. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed just a hair beneath their 200s. The Russell is still lagging a bit. It peaked less than 50 cents from its 200 DMA today before giving in to the late day selling.
It's starting to feel like a real stalemate right here. The bulls are so close to a solid move over these moving averages but there's just no volume. The volume that does show up intraday seems tends to be on these late day selloffs, yet the bears can't do much damage on the longer-term charts. It'll be interesting to see if the "sell in May" trade begins to take place ahead of the Memorial Day weekend. If so, the 200 DMAs would be the perfect places for the indices to peak.
The action in some of the momentum stocks was pretty wild today. Many of the solar plays look like they had blow-off tops today. For example, here's China Sunergy Co., Ltd. (CSUN):
The index charts are below:
I'm bumping the S&P's long term trend to lateral since it's right on its 200 DMA.
| Trend | Nasdaq | S&P 500 | Russell 2000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | Lat | Lat(+) | Down |
| Intermediate | Up | Up | Up |
| Short-term | Up | Up | Up |
(+) Indicates an upward reclassification today
(-) Indicates a downward reclassification today
Lat Indicates a Lateral trend
*** I'm simply using the indices' relations to their 200, 50 and 10-day moving averages to tell me the long, intermediate and short-term trends, respectively.
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