A Fresh Look at Small Cap and Midcap Stocks

A while back, I noted that the bull market was over for the majority of stocks, observing the relative weakness of small cap and midcap shares.  After quite a bout of weakness, I'm now seeing the emergence of the opposite situation:  the number of small cap and midcap shares making fresh 20-day lows has not been expanding, even though we've seen recent price weakness and a new low for the large cap Dow average.  (Credit to Index Indicators for the charts).

Meanwhile, the equity put-call ratio over the past 20 days has exceeded 1.0, levels seen during the May-June, 2010 correction; the August-September, 2011 break; and the decline of May-June, 2012.  All were good intermediate times to be buying stocks; all were also choppy, stairstep declines with extended periods of basing that included sharp rallies as well as price erosion.  While my Selling Pressure measure has been seeing new lows lately, that pressure is not translating into more stocks trading below their 20-day moving averages, either among large caps, small caps, or midcaps.  That is very much on my radar near term.
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