Oversold Indicators turn Bullish 4/13/11 7am ET

Our oversold stock market indicators have turned moderately bullish from their slightly bearish signals of March 25th (when the S&P was at 1318).  The market is calling slightly higher in overnight trading, with the S&P trading electronically at the equivalent of 1319 (on the cash S&P).

Our long-term models remain strongly bullish, and our short-term models are slightly bullish, awaiting confirmation during the day.  Long-term investors should have their stock positions in place, and traders can be looking to enter the equity markets.

March Recap 4/5/11

As usual, the financial markets were very interesting.  The month of March saw extreme volatility -- and weirdly enough, some markets remained relatively flat for the month.  U.S. stocks and bonds ended the month mostly flat, with the S&P 500 closing at 1326 after opening the month at 1327.

Events in Japan and Libya created extreme volatility and whipsaw-like market action for many markets.  The Japanese Nikkei index plummeted -20% before bouncing back to end the month down about -10%.  Many other markets such as sugar, oil, and grains also saw reversals in long-term trends and then a bounce-back.

Managed futures indices and benchmarks tabulated by Barclays and NewEdge were down about -2% to -5%.  Trading advisor performance was generally down, with performance in a wide range.  In general, the commodities sectors fared better than the financial sectors.