This past week the most critical thing to watch was the low trading volume. Whenever there is low volume such as this past week, and we expect again this coming week, stops are taken out prematurely as it is easy to enter low bids prior to the open. The markets did make new highs last week as we'd also expected. Returning to read some of our recent commentaries we noticed that on our Nov. 1 weekly commentary we wrote the following in which we could not have been more correct:
"We are not yet convinced that these markets are ready to go down in a big way. Yes the 8 month trend line has been broken but that does not automatically mean the market is going down. It could simply move sideways before turning back up."
"We do believe that this market will be making new highs before the end of the year but first it needs to let out some tension and correct for a few days or more."
...and finally, while we are patting ourselves on the back we're happy to report our successfull trade record as of June when we began this weekly forecast. In seven months we have had the following results.
29 winners
between 5% and 10%
8 winners
between 10% and 15%
6 winners
between 15% and 20%
6 winners
between 20% and 65%
Our largest winner was 62.81% and our largest loss was -8.05%. We only had 2 losses between -5% and -10% and no losses higher than - 8.05%. We also had a 23 week winning streak of continuous profitable weeks on closed trades and only 2 continuous losing weeks. 6 out of the 7 months showed a profit with only November showing a loss of -0.97% (Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please read our full Terms and Conditions before following any of our posted trades here or elsewhere).
Now that we are feeling happy with our 2009 accomplishments, we can look to the week ahead. Volume will be very low and most likely lower than this past week and anything can happen in a low volume environment. However we do believe the markets will move slightly higher but may close out the week flat. We have elaborated on this more in our Friday comments for members on the Sp-500 in our indices section. We have a lot of open positions with some nice gains so we will be setting our stops as tight as we can to make sure we close out the year on a good positive note.
The Nasdaq Composite Index
First support is at - 2250, 2200, and 2176. Resistance is at 2350 and 24000.
Standard and Poors SP-500 index
First support is at - 1120,1095 and 1084. Resistance is at 1200 and 1250..
The Dow Jones Industrial Averages Index
Support is at - 10500, 10230 and 9930. Resistance is at 10850 and 11037.
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The KBW Bank Index
Support is at - 41.70 resistance is at 44.50 and 45.50 The banking index has made a double bottom and is now testing the down trend line shown on the chart below. A break above the line will be confirmation that the move is real. If it does break above the trend line it may come back down to test the break out, that will be the best buying opportunity for the real move up.
GOLD - via the GLD
Gold bounced on support and is now working it's way back up to test the 50 day sma. It may move back down to retest the low at 105 before continuing on its next leg higher. Support will be at 105. Resistance is at 110, 111.50 and 114.
OIL (light sweet crude)
Oil bounced nicely and has more room to the upside before hitting any real resistance.
The US Dollar (Dollar Index ) The U.S. Dollar has broken above our initial target. It did hit resistance and may trade sideways to down this coming week. It is over bought now so a move down to test 76.80 or even 76.20 should be expected soon.
This past week the most critical thing to watch was the low trading volume. Whenever there is low volume such as this past week, and we expect again this coming week, stops are taken out prematurely as it is easy to enter low bids prior to the open. The markets did make new highs last week as we'd also expected. Returning to read some of our recent commentaries we noticed that on our 
