The pullback either ended at the mid-week low or requires at least one more decline early next week. If there’s lack of a strong follow through buying in the Dow next week, odds favor a continued correction - sideways at best.
Scenario 1 - The pullback ended at the mid-week low.
[1] From the perspective of time, the minimum duration requirement for a corrective pullback has been met. The prior rise (Nov 16th low to Dec 3rd high) took roughly 10 trading days. The pullback from Dec 3rd high to mid-week low took 3 or 4 days, and 5 days to Friday’s close. So the correction already represented 30% to 50% of the prior rise in time.
[2] Stocks rebounded from their mid-week lows and those lows have so far not been breached. In the meantime, the Dow actually broke above its Dec 1st high, so did the the AD line associated with SP500. However, the breakout has not been confirmed by other benchmark indexes (see below).
Scenario 2 - The correction, sideways at best, is likely to continue.
The most notable development over the past week has been the diverging / non-confirming actions among leading indexes. It's likely that wave [c]-down of the proposed correction is yet to materialize.
Consider the magnitude of the pullback from the Dec 3rd high. The retrace in SP500 was shy of the 0.382-fib level, while the corresponding levels were touched by the retrace in the Dow and NDX (Chart 1, Chart 2 and Chart 3).
Consider the subsequent rebound from the mid-week low. The Dow broke out higher and is weding toward its 0.618-fib retrace of the Sep-Nov sell-off (Chart 2). SP500 is close to breaking out but has failed to confirm the advance in the Dow (Chart 1), while NDX has continued to grind lower after a small-degree three-wave rebound (Chart 3).
Thus, if there’s lack of a strong follow through buying in the Dow next week, odds favor a continued correction - sideways at best (e.g. a potential triangle as indicated by the red lines in Chart 1).
Big picture - The final upswing of the Hope Rally is likely in progress (as discussed in recent weekly commentaries). In other words, the larger trend likely remains up. Chart 4 on the relatively weak performing NDX also illustrates. It appears that [iii]-up of 5-up is likely next based on the bullish green count which implies a new Hope Rally high, or that [c]-up of 2-up is likely next based on the bearish red count which implies no more Hope Rally highs.
