Charts show that the stock markets are closer to a rally end than beginning - lacking breakout confirmation

We had the idea a bounce was more likely than not, so I hope readers weren't too surprised today! But we didn't talk about new highs necessarily, or so quick. Actually Andre Gratian did, in his update yesterday! Plus Mike Burk (if you read his article at that link), and Tony Caldaro left the door open to it. Below I'll talk about technicals. But first, a couple examples of what some others said today. One interpretation by Schaeffer's said, "Lifting stocks early on were comments from St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard, whose suggestion for the central bank to buy mortgage-backed securities into 2010 supported expectations for continued record-low interest rates.". And here's what everyone including Briefing.com is seeing:

[BRIEFING.COM at 10:45 am] The US Dollar Index has steadily trended lower in its overnight and morning session and is currently near today current lows, which has provided price support to most of the commodity complex. And currently, major commodities including crude oil, natural gas, gold and silver and trading just under session highs.

January crude oil, which just began trading today in place of the Dec contract, traded in a tight range overnight but began to gain momentum as the open of pit trading came closer. Crude extended its upward price momentum at the opening and pushed to morning highs of $79.92 per barrel. Currently, crude is trading 2.5% higher at $79.43 per barrel.

December natural gas is pulling back off of recently hit session highs of $4.58 per MMBtu. An hour before its recently hit highs, natural gas put in new lows at $4.467 before bouncing to its recent highs. In current action, natural gas is 2.8% higher at $4.546 per MMBtu.

Precious metals are also seeing price support on the weakness in the dollar. December gold recently hit new all-time highs, as well as new session highs, of $1174.00 per ounce and is currently trading just under those highs at $1171.00 per ounce, up 2.1%. December silver also hit its own fresh session highs of $18.935 per ounce and is currently up 2.1% at $18.83 per ounce.

So all eyes on dollar versus gold, commodities and equities now. As I tweeted - approximately one year after the November 2008 lows, how far we've come - when money moving to safety means AWAY from the US dollar ($USD)! Well as with anything, it will work until it doesn't. The dollar's level we're watching is 74.75 (73.58 if necessary); and gold, $1192.

Update 9:20 pm - Also check out Dr. Brett Steenbarger's comments in TraderFeed: A Look at a Trading Range Across Markets, at http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/2009/11/look-at-trading-range-across-markets.html

Also this tweet by Dr. Brett today:

Latest blog post begins a series on overcoming frustration in trading:http://rurl.org/24gb.

From the Elliott Wave perspective, it seems likely this move is an extension of the fifth wave to complete the rally. Potential levels if the SPX can get over 1112, are 1122 and Andre's 1145. Tony Caldaro has surfaced the idea of a diagonal which would be fine by me too, we'll just have to see if that's what the SPX has in mind and can do. And as Tony said in his weekend update, "When this "buying the dips" pattern changes we can be fairly certain that Primary wave B has ended.". My basic point is, unless we get confirmation of a breakout, we are closer to the end than a new beginning.

Notice the advance/decline and McClellan Oscillator actually didn't make new highs: