Attendees at a recent event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Chartered Market Technicians Association in New York were asked to forecast how the S&P 500 would end the year. With the index drifting sideways for the past year, it’s not surprising that a majority expected the index to remain range bound between 3,750 and 4,250. This is one of the basic tenets of technical analysis: the trend is your friend, until it isn’t. It also is known as recency bias: what recently happened is expected to continue, as it is the freshest in the mind of most investors. The poll did tilt toward the bullish side, with 31% looking for a move on the SPX to above 4,500, while 11% were bearish. In our view, there are far too many mixed signals on which to lean (to on one side or the other), so we would not argue with the above poll. The bulls have had their chance and the bears have had their chance, and neither group is strong enough to break the tug of war.