After a shaky start in which it appeared that the late gains achieved Wednesday might evaporate the equity indices came to life in mid-session as the latest pronouncements from Chairman Bernanke spooked traders on the short side and brought some long only fund managers off the sidelines.

The S&P 500 (^SPC) will face some technical resistance around 1440 but the major hurdle will be around 1470 which represents the convergence of the 50 and the 200 day EMA.



The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) faces a key challenge at the 2600 level.



Gold continues to make progress towards the $1000/oz target. The chart formation for the gold and silver index (^XAU) is supportive of further strength from the mining stocks, and I would be even more encouraged in this view if we were to see a temporary consolidation pattern near current levels.



Participants in the Treasury market were less sanguine than their counterparts in the stock market about the very accommodating language from the Fed chairman. It is obviously too early to judge whether we are witnessing a reticence to break down below the floor of a multi year trading range, but if the more pessimistic recession scenarios that some are proposing are valid, bounces should be short lived.



Express Scripts (ESRX) is exhibiting topping price behavior and there are negative MACD divergences.



Yesterday I mentioned the momentum behind Wednesday's upward move by Barr Pharmaceuticals (BRL). The stock moved up another 2.6% yesterday but now has to break above a chart hurdle at $55.



Heinz (HNZ) broke above two key moving averages yesterday on decent volume.



Clive Corcoran is the publisher of TradeWithForm.com, which provides daily analysis and commentary on the US stock market. He specializes in market neutral investing and and is currently working on a book about the benefits of trading with long/short strategies, which is scheduled for publication later this year.

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