The stock market has been charging ahead now for months without looking back. Amazingly, revolution in the Middle East, a brewing sovereign financial crisis in the Euro zone and a nuclear catastrophe in Japan haven't been sufficient to dent the S&P 500 by more than a few percent.
I, for one, think that Mr. Market may be ignoring these risks to his detriment and, at the very least, a significant correction may be in the cards. One valuable technical warning sign I look for is a cross of the 20-day exponential moving average beneath the 50-day ema. I've adopted this indicator from Carl Swenlin of Decision Point who has been using for years.
While the major indexes haven't crossed down just yet there are a few key charts that have. First, the lagging financial stocks (which never did successfully break out) have recently seen their moving averages cross down:
The Nasdaq 100, heavily weighted by the tech sector, briefly crossed down though it's now back up. Of course, we won't know if this is a whipsaw or not until after the fact:
Retail is in the same boat:
As are the Transports, which are also forming a clear broadening top pattern:
Dr. Copper (PhD in Econ.) is noticeably weak and has crossed down:
Conversely, after making significant lows in mid-February volatility spiked during the ides of March and has convincingly crossed up:
I'm not going to go out on a limb and say the correction is finally here like my friend Tom DeMark recently did (though my money's usually on Tom). No, “I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime” and, right now, the clues are telling me there's a good chance Tom will be proven right.