An Inbetween Market

After a few stutter step fades earlier, stocks are drifting back higher as I write this into the heart of the afternoon part of the session.

As we recently noted with Members, this is a holiday-shortened week (markets are closed on Friday) leading up Easter Sunday, which means one cannot rule out a low volume respite from the recent bout of high volatility and heavy volume sessions. 

Still, it is likely a mistake to construe a Holy Week reprieve as meaningful evidence of a major bottom. Indeed, in a bear market there is all the difference in the world between "a" temporary bottom versus "the" big, bad, long-term bottom.

Of course, many would beg to differ about us being in a bear market at all. But I would point to the declining 200-day moving averages on the S&P, Nasdaq, and Russell as clear evidence of a bearish trend until proven otherwise on intermediate and longer-term timeframes. 

In addition, the MAGS ETF is lagging the market noticeably today, thanks in large part to the likes of AMZN (below on the daily chart) META and MSFT. Amazon has a declining 200-day moving average, too, and is forming a bear flag as we speak. 

Overall, if this were a major bottom then one would think the mega cap tech names would be leading the charge higher, especially with the news flow over the weekend which seemed like it should help the MAGS names.