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RealMoney.com: Technical Analysis
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Can the Bulls Fit Through the Window?

By Helene Meisler
RealMoney.com Contributor

3/19/2008 8:05 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by Helene Meisler
 
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Forget the market and how fast everyone went from love to hate. Did you notice how everyone now loves the Fed? Gosh, a few weeks ago, it was like a Fed-bashing party, and now they are the belle of the ball!

This group of folks was complained about on a regular basis about how they just simply didn't get it, but now everyone is banking on the view that the Fed has finally gotten it right. Didn't we hear that at the January low as well?!

My mother always said that if you have nothing nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. So with that in mind, I'm going to say some nice things about yesterday's rally. Upside volume as a percentage of total volume was over 90% on both the NYSE and Nasdaq, a first since the November low.

We are not yet overbought, either. In fact, if we use the 10-day moving average (the oscillator) and the 30-day moving average of the advance/decline on Nasdaq, we actually see that the 10-day has moved up through the 30-day moving average.

Generally speaking, when we see this occur, we have a rally that lasts about three to six weeks.

Point A on the chart is late November. Over the next four weeks, Nasdaq rallied just shy of 200 points. Point B on the chart is late January, where it took about a week or so for Nasdaq to rally 200 points, although you will note that Nasdaq did not really head significantly lower until we had entered the fourth week. Point C is the current reading.

That tells me that we can give this rally some time. Of course, that's what I said a week ago just before I left on vacation and I see we are right back where we were when I made that comment!

In addition, the 10-day moving average of the put/call ratio has finally turned down, something I had anticipated would happen a week ago.

Finally, Nasdaq's McClellan Summation Index has turned upward. Well, at least it's flattened out and would now require a down day to get it to head down again. This was the case a week or two ago as well. My point is that the window keeps opening for rallies to have legs, and instead we get one- or two-day wonders and then they sit in the window going nowhere, using up that opening that was given them.

Now, because my mother also taught me to be fair, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that for all the hoopla in the market, last week's 400-point rally in the DJIA and this week's 400-point rally had lighter volume than last week's down days. In fact, when I post my charts (remember, I post about 200 stock charts by hand each day), the one thing I notice consistently is that all the volume resides in the financials and rarely anywhere else.

There is definitely high volume in the financials, but I can't find it in IBM (IBM - commentary - Cramer's Take) and I can't find it in Proctor & Gamble or Coke (KO - commentary - Cramer's Take).

However, the market is not yet overbought, and as I said a week ago, the window is open. The rally has some room to improve.

Overbought/Oversold Oscillators

For more explanation of these indicators, check out The Chartist's primer.








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At the time of publication, Meisler had no positions in the stocks mentioned, although holdings can change at any time.

Helene Meisler writes a daily technical analysis column and TheStreet.com Top Stocks. For more information, click here. Meisler trained at several Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and SG Cowen, and has worked with the equity trading department at Cargill. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. She appreciates your feedback; click here to send her an email.




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