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There has been a lot of speculation in financial media about whether or not the general stock market has transitioned from a bull to a bear market. My guess is: yes, we have entered a bear market, but I have no proof. I only have a few observations to note. One such observation is that during bear markets, the short-term uptrends are brief and weak, such as the short-term uptrend we just witnessed from March 15 to March 28.

Of course, we can't be too confident of anything in the current chaotic environment, and, who knows, there could be an announcement any minute that the tariffs were all a misunderstanding and they have been revoked. In that case, we'd probably have a wild stock market rally and an end to any speculation about a bear market.

The weakness of the most recent rally is clearly on display in this chart, as the last two weeks saw the major indexes barely move higher before they quickly fell back below the 5-day averages.

The bullish percents looked promising, but they then turned sharply lower on Friday.

The Summations have confirmed the downtrend by falling below the moving averages.

Junk bond prices have been weak, but not by an alarming amount -- not yet at least. I would like to see the price of this junk bond ETF remain above the horizontal support level. If a dip below that level was to occur, such a move would confirm the weakness in stocks. In such a scenario, I don't think I'd be a strong buyer of stocks until the price of the junk bond ETF could rise back above.

The buy-write indexes seem to be indicating that there is significant weakness in the general market. When stock prices are healthy, these buy-write indexes can easily push higher, but there has only been weakness here since late February.

This chart shows the prices of what I consider to be essential participants in any bull market for stocks. If these two ETFs are weak, then stock prices in general are likely weak. The green 200-day average is starting to point downward for the Semiconductors, which is a real sign of weakness.

The two major indexes are also below their 200-day averages, and after Friday's session, they are not giving any indication that they will be rising above their 200-day averages anytime soon.

Gold and gold miners have been one the few areas of market strength. Friday presented an interesting divergence, though. Gold rose to a new high, and the miners did too, except the miners reversed lower during the day and experienced a very weak close. This might be a sign of exhaustion for these stocks.

The AD line shown below is leading stocks lower. The short-term trend just turned negative, while the AD is already poised to break down to new lows. This is a bearish indicator.

The AD started leading stocks lower back in the December-January period when it showed a negative divergence to stock prices. Since the negative divergence, stocks have fallen very hard.

Treasury yields remain in a short-term downtrend, which means money is flowing into bonds and out of stocks.

This chart is the clincher for the bears. There are way, way too many new 52-week lows. It is acceptable to see new lows when the market is nearing a short-term bottom. But we just experienced a short-term top, not a bottom, and at the same time we are seeing a lot of new lows.

Or, in other words, we are seeing a lot of new lows when the PMO index (as shown in the first chart) is near the top of its range, and for me this is a major negative. I doubled down on leveraged inverse ETFs on Friday, and I will probably buy more on Monday. This seems to be another bearish indicator.

Bottom Line

My trading account is almost all in cash and inverse ETFs. I don't like owning stocks right now.

Outlook Summary

• The short-term trend is down for stock prices as of March 18
• The medium-term trend is neutral for Treasury bond prices 

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