Kevin Lane, technical analyst of Fusion IQ said:

“While crossing the 200-day line is more a psychological milestone than anything else, it does suggest that upward price strength momentum is persistent. Can we have pullbacks along the way still? Of course. However, there is now no real resistance on the S&P 500 until the 1,000 level. As long as breadth remains strong it is hard to expect any major corrections, but given the extended nature of the market we would keep trailing stops higher.”

On the downside, the levels from where the rally commenced on March 9 should hold in order for base formations to remain in force.

Adam Hewison, of INO.com, has again prepared another of his popular technical analyses on the S&P 500, arguing that the market seems to be running out of steam. Click here to access the short presentation.

A useful indicator of market breadth is a chart showing the percentage of New York Stock Exchange stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages. Although this measure has declined from 94% in early May to 87% on Friday, it's still at a level typically seen at prior peaks during the bear market (see green chart below). This looks overdone in the short term. Secondary corrections aside, the primary trend of the market is now bullish as the bulk of the index constituents (66%) are trading above their 200-day averages (see red chart below).






Bill Gross, co-founder and co-CIO of PIMCO, advised the following in his latest newsletter:

“Bond investors should confine maturities to the front end of yield curves where continuing low yields and downside price protection are more probable. Holders of dollars should diversify their own baskets before central banks and sovereign wealth funds ultimately do the same.

“All investors should expect considerably lower rates of return than what they grew accustomed to only a few years ago. Staying rich in the 'new normal' may ... require investors to resemble ... Will Rogers, who opined in the early '30s that he wasn't as much concerned about the return on his money as the return of his money.”

From across the pond, David Fuller (Fullermoney) said:

“We could be seeing one of those occasional all-change signals in terms of short-term trends. Basically, while medium-term trends are bullish for stock markets and commodities, but bearish for the USD and long-dated government bond prices, many of these trends are overstretched in the short term. For leading stock markets, this will probably be limited to reversion to the mean in terms of 200-day moving averages, which are beginning to rise.”

And lastly, John Murphy (StockCharts.com) concurs, remarking:

“As good as the spring rally has been, I believe the market is still in need of some corrective action (or consolidation) before moving substantially higher. V bottoms are extremely rare. W bottoms are a lot more common. So are head and shoulder bottoms. It seems unlikely that the market will continue to rally in a straight line. More basing activity is most likely needed. And that's going to require more time.”

I'm busy studying the relationship between stock-market movements and the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and should have a post on this up on the site within the next few days. Keep an eye out for this article to cast light on the likely outcome of the battle between the bulls and bears.