Coolhand's Market Analysis

After chopping around for most of the morning, stocks eventually turned up and mounted a moderate rally that saw the major indexes take back a small portion of this week's losses.

Oil has been under pressure of late and today was no exception as a barrel of oil fell 1.5% to $101.13.

In market data, the preliminary March Consumer Sentiment Survey came in at 68.2. This was the worst reading in five months and was well below analysts expectations.

February advance retail sales were up 1.0%, while January retail sales were revised upward a 0.7% increase. And finally, January business inventories revealed a 0.9% increase, which was a bit higher than anticipated.

Overall, it was a tense day given the events in Japan and perhaps a bit surprising that the market could even muster a rally in the face of such a tragic event.

Here's the days charts:



NAMO and NYMO improved modestly, but remain on sells.



NAHL and NYHL also remain on sells.



TRIN and TRINQ both spiked lower and are flashing buys, but these readings suggest an overbought market. Monday may see more selling pressure as a result.



BPCOMPQ dipped a bit lower and really looks bearish. Of course it remains on a sell.

The system remains on a buy, but it looks ready to flip to a sell. If the market turns lower again on Monday, as TRIN and TRINQ suggest, I would expect to see a confirmed sell signal from the Seven Sentinels. Today's rally wasn't nearly enough to inspire any confidence on the bull side, but the Fed's POMO is still in play and that can't be ignored either. I would also point out that our sentiment survey is on a buy for next week. What I find particularly notable about this is that the bull/bear percentage is the lowest since the week of 30Aug. If you remember, the market began its incredible bull run on the 1st of September on such negativity. Will we see such a rally next week?

I'll be posting the Tracker charts later this weekend. See you then.