U.S. stocks on Wednesday were attempting to build on a big and broad Tuesday bounce, but skeptics aren’t yet convinced the move is more than a bear-market rally. Tuesday’s rally was “undoubtedly impressive, especially following a sharp reversal lower the previous day,” said Kevin Dempter, a technical analyst at Renaissance Macro, in a Wednesday note.
Market internals were robust, Dempter acknowledged, which suggested buyers were urgently snapping up stocks as the NYSE TRIN, or Trading Index, a breadth oscillator that measures internal market strength or witness, hit .369 and the Russell 3000 percentage of advancers and up volume came in at their highest since the COVID-19 lows in 2020. Data has shown large speculators, mostly hedge funds, had moved net short on S&P 500 index futures, which typically sets the stage for solid forward returns, he noted, alongside other factors that typically point to near-term gains. That may set the stage for further gains, with the S&P 500 capable of making a run toward resistance around the 4,000 level, Dempter wrote. It isn’t enough, however, to sound the all-clear on a bear market that still has the large-cap benchmark nursing a year-to-date loss of more …