Really, on only the first trading day of the new year was revealed the kind of backing we might cite as positively confirming the market's strength, such as has persisted ever since and with scarcely a pause at that. Indeed, other than 2013's first trading day, the breadth of advancing NYSE issues underpinning the market's undisturbed march higher has been starkly muted.
In fact going back to its mid-November 2012 bottom we see the same suspicious quality about the market's advance off that bottom. Duly observe, too, this generally diminishing underlying participation of advancing NYSE issues contrasted to what accompanied the market's advance off its early-June 2012 bottom. Other than a few instances of relatively better-than-average advancing issue participation coinciding with the market's move higher, the state of its underlying condition since mid-November 2012 is only the more suspect than was the case during its advance into mid-September 2012 peak. Truly, the technical foundation underlying the market's continued levitation is incredibly weak.
I'll have more to say about this shortly. Suffice it for now that, desperately weak hands might be having their way for the moment, yet circumstance weakening their position still further—Europe—and requiring their concerted effort to prop up, is positively certain to relegate their battle a hopeless cause. Recently proclaimed British intentions of a most upsetting sort will see to it that, today's status quo will be impossible to defend indefinitely. Judging by decidedly suspect technical underpinnings presently accompanying the market's advance, it's not like weak hands don't see what's coming. Biding time might afford an infrequent goose paving the way for distribution targeting the clueless (Birinyi), but by no means is the foundation for a lasting advance being laid.
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