weekly sector review written by Scott Martindale

Scott MartindaleOn Tuesday, the market lost support at Nasdaq 2500 after losing S&P 500 1200 last week, and then threatened to breakdown below the psychologically important Dow 11,000. But alas, one bad day does not confirm a trend change, and today (Wednesday) was the exact opposite.

Scott MartindaleThe market is finally giving us the long anticipated and overdue pullback. This is good for its longer term health. The media is attributing the weakness to news out of Ireland, but the fact is that the technical picture has been screaming for a pullback and retest of key support levels, including Dow 11,000.

Scott MartindaleThe resolution of uncertainty last week around the elections and FOMC announcement allowed the market to release some pent-up energy and finally break out of its consolidation pattern. After the normal head fakes in both directions, it rallied hard such that the S&P 500 reached a 2-year closing high.

Scott MartindaleThe market continues to dwell in a zone of consolidation in a virtual tug-of-war between the bulls & bears. Bears think the market needs to prove itself by testing key support levels and working off its overbought technical indicators.

Scott MartindaleLast week ended with a thud as concerns about the Financial industry's foreclosure processes put a damper on the party that Google was trying to throw for everyone.

Scott MartindaleThe market continues to defy gravity, and every small attempt by the bears to push it down – even in this moderate-volume trading environment – is swatted aside like a pesky mosquito and limited to one-day non-events. And now the market has its sights set on new 2010 highs, and it might just get there before some much needed profit-taking and support-testing sets in.

The market continues to try to suck in bears who are itching to short a rally that is long on optimism but short on volume and fundamental underpinnings. But each time it appears that a correction of significance is ready to start, a bid arrives with the slimmest of justification to sends the market to new heights. Despite market exuberance, my own technical analysis of the charts and Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF fundamentals-based quantitative ranking of the ten U.S. sector iShares are both telling me that there is still much to worry about.

Scott MartindaleAfter last week’s Sector Detector article in which I talked about the “relentlessly strong September” making the market quite overbought from a technical standpoint, it looked like the market was going to waterfall into a healthy correction on Thursday. But alas, the bulls pulled a rabbit out of their hat and closed the week with a flourish.

Scott MartindaleA relentlessly strong September is making the market quite overbought from a technical standpoint. So much for September being historically the worst month of the year for stocks. But it now appears to be at a crossroads. And Sabrient's quantitative SectorCast rankings are even more defensive this week.

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