In a market that has been deemed "difficult" by most, some of the key Fibonacci levels are actually starting to work quite nicely. Birinyi Associates typically does not subscribe to such purely technical approaches, but the price points are worth discussing.
For those not familiar, a Fibonacci retracement uses a previous market move to predict the ensuing cycle. For example, if we wanted to predict the moves of the bear market beginning on 10/9/07 we would base our retracement on the bull market that ran from 10/9/02 until 10/9/07. (In this case we are using closing prices, however intra-day highs and lows are often deemed more accurate.)
Below we are examining a retracement of the bear market lasting from 10/9/07 to 3/9/09. When looking at the chart it is important to ignore everything prior to 3/9/09. (Since we used 10/9/07 and 3/9/09 closes to define our range, anything seemly important from that period is purely coincidental.) Okay so having gotten the definitions out of the way... some of the retracement levels have worked out well.
In the chart below we can see how the market paused briefly at the 23.6% line (S&P cash value: 886.24) and there was short-term resistance at 1015 (the 38.2% retracement). While there are other elements at work in this market, key support for the S&P 500 is at 1015, 1000, and then 980; the next important Fibonacci level is the 50% line at 1120.