Erin Swenlin's Contributions

The headlines will continue to be filled with 'fiscal cliff' fears, so we're not sure what positive possibilities are even out there that might spur a rally, it all seems negative. This negativity that is settling over the business world is translating into investor fear and probably more market decline.

As New York City and other parts of the northeast begin to recover from the hurricane, the market may have started its own recovery. It opened up and stayed up the remainder of the day.

Until the election it is very likely that we will see the market confine itself to this near horizontal trend channel. Ultra-short-term indicators are overbought but not at extremes and short-term indicators clearly have plenty of room before they even reach overbought.

Short-term indicators are in overbought territory. Sustainability of this rally is still questionable given that the big one-day moves this week and last week have been on somewhat manufactured news out of the central banks, but I think a breakout on the weekly chart is very encouraging.

The market is not acting like it is ready to bottom despite yesterday and today's last minute price saves. The last top didn't quite make it to overhead resistance and caused a bearish ascending wedge.

The market trickled up today after suffering a steep drop yesterday. We saw climactic behavior on a few of our ultra-short-term indicators yesterday, so we suspected we might see a baby bounce.

The market opened higher and then fell apparently amid concerns about Spain this time. Prices did recuperate midday so stocks closed near the high for the day. I keep feeling bullish about gold and then it disappoints. Today prices were lower and now we have a corkscrew or coil. Overall the pattern is still in a declining trend since the January "breakout".

Today's big news... We had an intermediate-term neutral signal generated on our Thrust/Trend Model for the SPX. The 20-EMA crossed below the 50-EMA today which was the trigger. It was not a sell signal because the 50-EMA remains above the 200-EMA which means we are technically in a long-term bull market still. You don't want to go on a sell signal in the midst of a bull market.

We are seeing the market start in a new consolidation trading range defined by the bottom of the double-bottom and the 2012 market high. It may require some more chop to alleviate overbought short-term indicators.

With European markets up and the release of more positive earnings news, the market opened up, rallied to midday and consolidated from there to the close.

The market is now consolidating in a slowly rising positive trend channel. Indicators are moving sideways so there is no telling when a breakdown or breakout of this channel might occur. For now we ride the trend up.

After weeks of advancing slowly, the market finally had a small short-term breakdown yesterday. Today, however was the 'real deal' breakdown we have been waiting for. Looking at the 10-minute bar chart we see that price was down immediately on the open, following suit with European markets that had opened low earlier and were preparing to close down over 1.8%. Trading after that was mostly sideways, likely digesting the opening drop.

The market is trading sideways along horizontal resistance at the October high. Indicators are barely changed, providing little insight. Upcoming news from Europe among other reports being released tomorrow could be holding investors back. As we've seen in the recent past, headlines can have a very negative or very positive effect on the market, so we need to be prepared for the weather ahead by considering tight stops on investments or just laying low.

Today we officially moved from a long-term bear market to a long-term bull market with the Long-Term Trend Model BUY signal. Short-term indicators have turned up and while some may be near overbought territory, all of them have room to rise higher before becoming dangerously overbought.

It appears that Santa Claus has already come to town, bringing with him a nice rally off of the mid-December low. The S&P 500 opened up and stayed up until the close. The NASDAQ recovered today from its major price decline yesterday as many of the tech stocks that got hammered yesterday probably benefited from some bargain-hunters today.

It appeared the market was going to rally but it quickly faded. It hit a tipping point at the end of the day on more mixed news out of Europe, and fell off the cliff following the FOMC statement that the economy was sluggish and no easing was on the horizon.

The markets traded mostly sideways today as yesterday's leap up was still being consolidated. This is allowing oversold conditions to continue to unwind and clear.

It looked as though the market was going to follow through on the bear market this morning or at the very least consolidate. When prices began to descend after the midday top, somebody initiated a buying program on news, squeezing the shorts before the market fell apart.

Wednesday finally marked the official move from a bull market to a bear market as the 50-EMA crossed below the 200-EMA. Unofficially we have been applying bear market rules for the past few weeks when the steep decline began and our intermediate-term NEUTRAL signal was generated.

I don't see today and yesterday as the beginning of a crash. Today was a continuation of a correction that began last week when the market broke down below support in the positive trend channel it had been in for weeks. Here are a few charts that I think support this hypothesis.