Stock Market (S&P 500) Breakdown to New Levels Has Begun

For the last three to four months, the Stock Market, as represented by the S&P 500 has been trading in a symmetrical triangle pattern. This blog has been saying that breakout would occur soon, sometime during February.

On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, the S&P 500 has finally broken down from the symmetrical triangle and is starting a new downtrend.



There is major resistance at around the 740 to 760 level from the November 2008 lows of 741, and the major low of 768 during the last Bear Market from 2000 - 2002.



While the stock market could bounce off these lows again, based on the breakout from the symmetrical triangle pattern, we could hit a low of 558 on the S&P 500. [Since the maximum range of the previous triangle is 267 (1007 - 740 = 267), we apply this to the breakout point of 825 to come up with a downside target of 558 (825 - 267 = 558)]

This matches this blog's analysis of a S&P 500 bottom of 450 to 600.

Notice that if we break down below the major S&P 500 bottom of 740 to 768 on the S&P 500 set in 2002 and 2008, there is not much support below:



We do appear to be in the middle of a long term secular bear market that started in 2000 and will end around 2016.

Today's Chart of S&P 500