Stock Market Outlook entering the Week of December 19th = Uptrend

• • ADX Directional Indicators: Downtrend
  • Price & Volume Action: Mixed
  • Elliott Wave Analysis: Uptrend

ANALYSIS
The stock market outlook maintains an uptrend, though the underlying signal strength weakened last week.

More volatile price action for the S&P500 ($SPX).  As of Friday’s close, the index dropped almost 2%, sitting just above the 50-day moving average.

SPX Price & Volume Chart for the Week of December 19 2021

The ADX directional indicators flipped twice last week; from bullish to bearish on Tuesday, back to bullish Wednesday & Thursday, and then back to bearish on Friday.

The index remains above the 50-day moving average, but a high level of institutional selling moves the price/volume signal to “mixed”.  Wednesday’s follow-through day confirmed a bullish trend. High volume selling returned on Thursday and Friday was put the distribution day count to 7, which is bearish.

Friday’s trading volume is hard to interpret; in additional to regular trading activity, the markets also digested:

• Expiration of equity options & futures and index options & futures (i.e. “quadruple witching”)
• Index rebalancing
• S&P 400, 500, and 600
• Nasdaq 100

Either way, that type of market action isn’t what you want to see right after a follow-through.

SPX Elliott Wave Analysis for the Week of December 19 2021

For Elliott Wave, there’s no change from last week, in terms of the signal or the overall count; two set-ups remain possible:

1. Minor Wave 2 ended at the December 3rd low of 4495
2. The A-wave of Minor Wave 2 ended at the December 3rd low of 4495

COMMENTARY
No major surprises; the U.S. Fed announced that the pace of bond purchases (i.e. taper) will increase and we should plan for rate hikes in 2022.  At the moment, they’re forecasting 3 hikes next year.

Repeating the message from last week, tapering means removing liquidity from financial markets, and less liquidity means higher volatility.  Higher volatility means larger price swings, which impacts your entry and exit signals.

Rising rates change the valuation of future cashflows, which changes financial estimates for all sorts of fundamental analysis.  For instance, SPACs and other technology IPOs use the value of future cashflows to justify their valuations and stock prices since they don’t have earnings yet.

This week, personal income and PCE index data is released, and markets are closed on Friday in observance of Christmas.

Best to Your Week!

Invest Safely, LLC is an independent investment research and online financial media company.  Use of Invest Safely, LLC and any other products available through invest-safely.com are subject to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.