Market volume continues to be relatively weak, but the absence of institutional selling and the timidity of short sellers provides a sufficiently supportive environment for equities.

The Russell 2000 is clearly the preferred play for those looking for the best bang for the buck when the markets are oblivious to any negative news.

The price action and the Ichimoku cloud formations are all suggesting further upward progress for US equities, but the volume leaves a large question mark over the conviction behind the recent rally.

Major equity indices now seem to be gearing up towards retesting January highs.

The Russell 2000 (RUT) reached back exactly to the previous 2010 high, but its chart leaves little more to go on than the fact that the path of least resistance would be a digestion of recent gains.

J C Penney (JCP) seems to have plenty of upside potential in the intermediate term.

The strong performance of the high-beta stocks reveals how quickly traders can overcome concerns about Greek government bonds and reining back risk and leap back into the micro-cap universe of equities where the bounce potential is most advantageous.

There is little to be gained, for the time being, in position trading the S&P 500 index but rather going with the intraday flow and reversing when key technical levels are tagged.

The candlestick pattern on the chart for the S&P 500 index ($SPX) suggests that there is still a lot of indecision about the near-term direction, and Clive Corcoran does not have a lot of conviction in trading this index at present.

The exchange traded sector fund which tracks financial services is beginning to look vulnerable.