michael ashbourgh on us market

The bigger picture
With recent losses, the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 have staged a second failed test of major resistance.
Specifically:

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The Dow industrials topped last week at 12,757 -- just 14 points above its 12,743 breakdown point -- before plunging 499 points to close Monday at 12,258.
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The S&P 500 topped last week at 1,388 -- within a point of its 50-day moving average -- before selling off 57 points to close Monday at 1,331.

So again, both benchmarks stalled last week near obvious resistance before selling off sharply -- the earmarks of a primary downtrend.
Meanwhile, the Nasdaq never even approached major resistance last week, before breaking to a 17-month closing low on Monday.
That means just on its face, the recent technical price action remains distinctly bearish.
Yet at the risk of getting overly technical, it's worth examining the U.S. markets' three most recent technically significant moves, which fall out as follows:

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The U.S. market's primary trend turned lower on Jan. 9, a few sessions after a 13-to-1 negative volume session.
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Three weeks later, on the first approach of major resistance -- for instance, the Dow's breakdown point around 12,750 -- each benchmark again sold off sharply driven by another 13-to-1 negative volume session, detailed on Feb. 6.
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And on the second test of the breakdown point, last week, the U.S. markets again sold off decisively driven by a 15-to-1 negative volume session.

That means the U.S. markets broke down to start the year on massively negative volume internals, and subsequently failed the first two tests of obvious resistance, also driven by firmly negative volume internals.
And between these technically damaging sell-offs, the major U.S. benchmarks haven't managed a single comparable positive session.
So, the good news is that the U.S. markets' recent price action makes complete sense technically.
The bad news is that it's almost all distinctly bearish.
And until better signs of an upturn emerge, the U.S. markets' path of least resistance remains lower.