PurelyTechnical

The Upper Bollinger Bands on several of the major indices are potential showing signs of trouble. We'd first brought this to the attention of members in the Nightly Commentary piece, last night, when we noticed that the upper bands were curving inwards.

That was quite an untoward development, as far as the bulls were to be concerned. Yet, one had to wait until the next morning to see if the development was just a blip or if there was definitely a change taking place.

Here's what you'd have wanted to be looking for this morning...

Were the bands still falling this morning? In fact, were they even just flat?

If the answer to one of those questions was "yes", then it was to have been seen as a sign that a potential minor top may have been put in place. At the very least, such a development would have to be seen as a big stumbling block for the bulls. It would have taken an immediate rising in the bands to have called for an ignoring of the development that was seen on the chart, last night.

So what has actually taken place after the open today?

Take a look at the charts of SPX, INDU and OEX, below...

In each of the cases, the upper Bollinger band is flat. That is certainly a preliminary sell signal and it might be considered as a sign that booking profits on weak long positions would not be a bad idea. However, we'll need a sign of confirmation before looking to change the minor trend from bullish to neutral and, perhaps, even recognize the highs that were put in place on Monday as a minor top.

We'll talk about one or two simple signals that we'll be looking for with respect to any such confirmation, in tonight's Nightly Commentary.

Have a good trading day!