Technical Market Report For January 27, 2018

The good news is:
All of the major averages, except the Russell 2000 (R2K) closed at all-time highs last Friday.

The Negatives

The market is overbought. NYSE 52 week new lows continue to increase. The increase appears to be from interest rate sensitive issues i.e. bonds trading as stocks.
There are not many equity issues on the new low list.

The blue-chip averages are above any reasonable trend line which is another way of saying the market has gone parabolic.

The Positives

The new index highs were confirmed by everything that matters.

The first chart covers the past 6 months showing the S&P 500 (SPX) in red and a 10% trend (19 day EMA) of NYSE new highs (NY NH) in green.  Dashed vertical lines have been drawn on the 1st trading day of each month. 

NY NH confirmed the SPX high on Friday.

The next chart is similar to the one above except it shows the Nasdaq composite (OTC) in blue and OTC NH, in green, has been calculated using Nasdaq data.

OTC NH has also been confirming the index.

The next chart covers the past 6 months showing the OTC in blue and a 40% trend (4 day EMA) of NASDAQ new highs divided by new highs + new lows (OTC HL Ratio), in red.  Dashed horizontal lines have been drawn at 10% levels for the indicator; the line is solid at the 50%, neutral, level.

OTC HL Ratio finished the week at a very strong 91%.

The next chart is similar to the one above one except it shows the SPX in red and NY HL Ratio, in blue, has been calculated with NYSE data.

 NY HL Ratio rose to finish the week at a strong 82%. 

Seasonality
Next week includes the last 3 trading days of January and the first 2 trading days of February during the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle.  The tables below show the daily change, on a percentage basis for that period.

OTC data covers the period from 1963 to 2016 while SPX data runs from 1928 to 2016.  There are summaries for both the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle and all years combined.

Average returns for the coming week have been mostly positive, but weaker for the OTC during the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle than other years.