Coolhand's Market Analysis

At the opening bell today, it looked as though our market was going to follow the lead of both the Asian and European markets, which rallied moderately today. But the highs of day came very quickly and by the close our major averages were mixed, with the Nasdaq sporting a moderate gain of 0.61%, while the DOW and S&P were relatively flat.

Oil bounced back from a 3% loss yesterday to post a 0.8% gain today and closed trade at $107.11 per barrel.

Earlier in the day retail sales for March saw a 0.4% increase, but less autos that number was higher at 0.8%.

Also released today, the Fed's latest Beige Book held no revelations that the market didn't already anticipate.

One other news item of interest was the President's plan to slash the federal deficit by $4 trillion in 12 years or less.

None of the news items today seemed to drive stock prices. It appears we are simply trading in a range, albeit a volatile one.

Let's take a look at the charts:



Both NAMO and NYMO ticked just a bit higher today and remain on sells.



NAHL and NYHL also bounced a bit today, but remain on sells.



TRIN is on a sell, while TRINQ is on a buy.



BPCOMPQ moved sideways today and remains in a sell condition.

So all but one signal are flashing sells, but it's not enough to flip the system, which remains in an intermediate term buy condition.

I have a suspicion that the selling isn't over yet.
Today's market activity didn't reveal many clues as to direction in the next few days, but the powers that be seem to have a penchant for running technicals from one extreme to another, which forces shifts in short term sentiment. As a result, reversals tend to happen as soon as the majority of traders flip their position, which once again puts them on the wrong side of the trade. Sound familiar?