Dow Jones Swings Show Bull Vs Bears with no winner thus far...

Francis H. States...

• Yesterday was fun. The Dow Jones had three swings of 150+ points up and down over the course of the day from high to low. According to work done by Howard Silverblatt over at S&P Capital IQ however, this is nothing. His data, going back to 1963, shows that the current high/low spread in the S&P 500 is only a modest 0.95% this year compared to 1.07% in 2012 and 1.64% in 2010 and 1.47% average over the period - so more wild swings ahead are certainly possible and maybe inevitable.

• Yesterday's mid-day swoon was ostensibly caused by a speech from Mario Draghi that QE was "relatively unlikely" but since the meeting was private, the street is still of the belief that some sort of quantitative easing remains on the agenda. Ukrainian sanctions escalated from the EU and the US yesterday but despite Canada sending six CF-18 fighter jets to assist NATO operations in eastern Europe, tensions seem to have eased a bit, at least in traders' minds (my experience is that traders can only focus on one thing at a time - and today we're back to digesting earnings). 

http://www.bnn.ca/Blogs/2014/04/29/A-swingin-Dow-Jones.aspx

Has the S&P 500 broken the downside setup?

By Avi Gilburt

If you were hoping that I was going to be able to present some magical count to clear this chart up, then I am sorry to say, I am going to seriously disappoint you. Not only do we not have clearer indications in the market, but the difference between this week's close and last week's close was not even a full 1.50 points. Talk about going nowhere fast.

For months now, this market has been up, down and all around — in other words, a corrective mess. It has not given any strong indication as to the next larger moves, which all smacks of corrective action. Yes, I know there are some who are so certain about the market’s next big move, but most of them have been saying the same thing for months as well. If we all take a step back and look at this market from an honest and larger-degree perspective, we will realize we have gone nowhere. Coming into 2014, I was quite clear that I expected the early part of 2014 to represent the market at an inflection point, and it surely has not disappointed.

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