June SP500 Begins Final Day on a Sell Signal after Retail Sales Came In Better than Expected

The SP500 was bid up into the Retail Sales report following news of Japan's 8.9 Earthquake and rolling Tsunamis elsewhere. However, the point and figure chart well on a double bottom sell signal at 1286.00. Only a breach of retail sales of 1290.00 puts the aggressive bear on hold.

Michigan Sentiment due out at 9.55 am ET will be the last bullish US economic data input this week for the stock market. Once that is out of the way, the SP500 should trade based on the existing trend of the week, which is bearish.

Several observations:
The intraday chart in the left frame shows a pre-quake high at 1294 and a 730 am CT high at 1290. Both this mornings 730 am high and yds 715 am high encountered resistance at the blue moving average. The high last Friday (NFP) was also set at 730 am.
The point and figure shows the SP500 traveling inside the upper channel of a pitchfork drawn off the March 4 NFP high. The SP500 found the mid-line of the pitchfork supportive twice this week at 1289 and 1278, the next lower low suggests support will be near 1267 as long as the SP500 stays inside the upper boundary of the pitchfork which was just touched at 730 am this morning at 1290.
The volatility band and the pitchfork on the point and figure indicate resistance at 1290. Only a breach of 1290 puts the aggressive bear trend on hold for a challenge of the pre-quake high. The pre-quake high is 1294, and that is +16 points above the overnight low at 1278. +16 point corrective rallies is about as good as it gets for the bulls this week (with the exception of Tuesday's fraud-closure gate inspired rally when 50 AG's outlined beneficial “settlement terms” for the mortgage-banking related industries.