Wednesday’s market moves gave Wall Street little to celebrate, but the relatively calm session could be a sign that the environment has made a welcome shift toward something closer to normal. The S & P 500 shuffled between modest gains and losses throughout the session, ultimately closing up a mere 0.1%. But even at its lows of the day — around 5,872 — the index was well above a key range identified by Jason Hunter, the head of technical strategy at JPMorgan. He said in a note to clients late Tuesday that the U.S. market appears to have jumped out of a “black hole” and could be in position to slowly grind higher. “If history is a guide, the S & P 500 Index bull gap through the critical resistance levels at 5750-5785 marked the transition back into a low-volatility rally regime,” Hunter wrote. The “bull gap” refers to the sharply higher open for the index on Monday. .SPX 5D mountain There is a “gap” on the S & P 500 chart from Monday’s sharply higher open. The market still faces plenty of headline risk. The 90-day truce on tariffs between the U.S. and China is not guaranteed to result in a deal, for one thing. There’s a chance that even reduced tariffs put upward pressure on inflation and serve as a brake on economic growth. Investors will be looking to Walmart ‘s earnings report Thursday morning for clues on that front. But for now, the stock market seems to have a clear path to gain another 4% or so, Hunter said. “Until we see a clear trend deceleration and something that looks like a short-term top pattern or headlines that risk whipsawing the renewed bullish market sentiment, we have the 6125-6170 cluster of levels penciled in as a potential upside target zone,” he said. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
