Make hay while the sun’s shining, is the old saying, and the sun is still shining on the stock market.
Even with U.S. stocks closing out the first quarter on a down note, and even though the quarter itself was largely a washout for large caps, the equities market is at the moment still in a good position, at least technically, said Mark Newton, the chief technical analyst and a partner at Greywolf Execution Partners.
“For now, this still appears like just a minor consolidation/backing and filling after the last couple days gains, and expect that indices still work higher into early April,” Mr. Newton wrote in a midday note.
The S&P 500 is off about 17 points on Tuesday, trading around 2069. That said, Mr. Newton sees support over in the futures market. The S&P 500 futures would need to trade under 2056 “on an hourly close” to foreshadow a larger pullback, “with 2031 being the bigger line in the sand.” (For a good take on what he means by an hourly close, look at this page.)
So this selloff itself has a ways to go before it gets dangerous to the outlook. It would take another selloff to trip Mr. Newton’s first wire, and another two or three to trip the second. Given the up and down nature of the market, that may be a tough nut for the bears to pull off.
Burt White, the chief investment officer at LPL Financial, echoed the view. “Stocks, as represented by the S&P 500 Index, have remained in a solid uptrend and support our positive technical view,” he wrote in a note. While he isn’t strictly speaking a technical analyst, he said he does use them. He looks at a 40-week moving average, which on his chart has been making a series of higher highs and lower lows. That tells him “a long-term bullish trend may remain in place for U.S. equities.”
In the spirit of the NCAA basketball tournament, Mr. White did his own version of the Final Four, a market-themed Final Four, to determine what factor will drive the market through 2015. He pitted the economy against earnings, and valuations against technicals. Earnings win the first matchup, technicals the second, producing a championship matchup: earnings vs. technicals.
“This is a very close call but reflects our belief in the classic investing adage that earnings drive stock prices,” he wrote. “We expect earnings to do much of the heavy lifting in driving market gains in 2015.” While the first-quarter’s numbers are widely expected to be negative, he sees improvement through the year.