S&P Trading 20% Above 200MA

Well, nothing like some earnings induced 'noise' to defy the odds. I suppose in fairness, the same thing could be said in the rare chance INTC had missed and the odds discussed Sunday were proven successful. Alas, they were not and are now of the board. The RSI related signal discussed here did play out successfully with the lower close Tuesday however.

With today's powerful rally, the S&P is now trading 20%+ above it's 200MA once more. There have not been many such cases to really provide a statistical edge. But it is interesting to note that for the instances that do exist, since 1982, we have generally seen a pullback in the short term term when this has occurred. The table below shows the performance 1, 2, 3 and 10 days after the the S&P first closes more than 20% from it's 200MA:

Ticker	Date/Time	Close	% Above 200MA	3Day-	%Chg N1	%Chg N2	%Chg N3	%Chg N10
SP500	5/9/1975	90.53	20.05	0.00	0.09	1.16	1.92	0.06
SP500	6/2/1975	92.58	21.45	0.00	0.33	0.02	0.12	-1.21
SP500	6/23/1975	93.62	20.50	0.00	0.61	1.07	1.27	-0.25
SP500	10/20/1982	139.23	21.02	1.00	-0.12	-0.29	-4.24	2.61
SP500	11/3/1982	142.87	23.13	1.00	-0.71	-0.50	-1.70	-3.46
SP500	12/7/1982	142.72	20.24	1.00	-0.63	-1.91	-2.21	-2.88
SP500	1/10/1983	146.78	20.26	1.00	-0.68	-0.06	-0.72	-4.64
SP500	3/3/1983	153.48	20.29	3.00	0.12	0.12	-1.45	-2.53
SP500	4/29/1983	164.43	20.46	1.00	-1.41	-1.27	-0.68	0.29
SP500	5/6/1983	166.10	20.53	1.00	-0.17	-0.09	-0.69	-2.38
SP500	9/16/2009	1,068.76	20.13	1.00	-0.31	-0.04	-0.38	-1.09
SP500	10/14/2009	1,092.02	20.26	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

As mentioned, there really aren't enough data here to rely on from a statistical point of view. Which may be a blessing since, given the environment we are in, one has to assume additional risk when shorting a market like this. However, it is interesting to note that the S&P 500 has only closed only once more than 23% above the 200MA. That was on 11/3/1982 and at that time the S&P was trading 23.13% above it's 200MA. This suggests that either upside is limited or that the 200MA is likely to embark on a steeper slope up.

Today the S&P also registered it's highest New 52 week high since February of 2007. From an intermediate term perspective, this appears to be bullish as can be seen from the table below, which shows the performance of the S&P 1 month later (20 trading days).

Ticker	Date/Time	Close	New Highs	%Chg N20
SP500	10/11/1982	134.47	653.00	4.44
SP500	11/3/1982	142.87	527.00	-2.83
SP500	3/12/1986	232.54	498.00	1.68
SP500	6/13/1997	893.27	481.00	2.81
SP500	7/3/1997	916.92	537.00	3.30
SP500	7/16/1997	936.59	529.00	-1.56
SP500	7/30/1997	952.29	485.00	-4.05
SP500	10/3/1997	965.03	631.00	-5.22
SP500	6/2/2003	967.00	530.00	0.78
SP500	6/4/2003	986.24	522.00	0.76
SP500	6/12/2003	998.51	465.00	-0.04
SP500	9/3/2003	1,026.27	493.00	-0.78
SP500	10/9/2003	1,038.73	496.00	1.86
SP500	10/13/2003	1,045.35	475.00	0.17
SP500	11/3/2003	1,059.02	503.00	0.72
SP500	12/1/2003	1,070.12	627.00	3.69
SP500	12/29/2003	1,109.48	623.00	1.71
SP500	1/5/2004	1,122.22	615.00	1.23
SP500	1/8/2004	1,131.92	495.00	0.96
SP500	1/20/2004	1,138.77	536.00	1.15
SP500	3/5/2004	1,156.86	467.00	-1.30
SP500	12/1/2004	1,191.37	468.00	1.86
SP500	7/11/2005	1,219.44	488.00	0.30
SP500	12/4/2006	1,409.12	503.00	0.65
SP500	2/7/2007	1,450.02	465.00	-3.32
SP500	10/14/2009	1,092.02	462.00	0.00

Any pullback that manifests may be a buying opportunity.