12.19 U.S. Market Preview: Going No Where Fast

By John Galt
December 19, 2011 – 08:20 ET

A tad late this morning with the update but then again, I was up into the wee hours to see if the Dear Leader's son was going to engage in a random act of kindness or stupidity. Fortunately it has been quiet beyond the traditional launching of a short range missile to scare the South Koreans and keep our boys in the peninsula on alert. The markets went no where fast last week besides dropping around 3% so the idea that Santa Claus is coming to town may end up being a phantom wish this year. It wold not matter however if there was a huge rally because odds are it will not escape the range that the markets have been trapped in:

For almost a decade.

My fun factoid this morning is summed up in this decade long chart of the S&P 500 based on the daily close:

Unless some miracle occurs and we break above 1350 on the S&P 500 on a closing basis with heavy volume before January 1st, this market has all of the appearance of wanting to retest and break the lower end of that range some time in January or February of next year.

Key areas for today (and probably the week):

1. 1220 is still overhead resistance with 1194 acting as support.

2. $1627 is short term resistance with $1571 as short term support.

3. Goldman Sachs had best get back above $100 per share or it will be a seventy something dollar stock real soon and quite probably a lot less.

4. The Euro is barely holding the 1.30 level and a close below 1.2970 would be a warning signal that problems are re-accelerating in Europe.

Have a fun day and I'll review the market action tonight on the Voice of Galt.