Varying dynamics inhibited the market's ability to challenge highs over the week just past; especially for the Dow Industrials, which never moved as firmly as the S&P; which of course is 'capitalization rather than price', in terms of how it's weighed.

Channeling the various arguments, I tended to be skeptical of conventional linear technical views that simply carry the S&P straight-line higher. To me that was non-thinking straight-edge optimism; oblivious to all actual facts. In the early days of financial TV I emphasized charts because the expeditious dissemination of factual information was not as swift or readily available sometimes so you looked for hints in what I'd termed 'price and pattern behavior'. I still do that; but now sometimes facts or reports (whether really meaningful or not) appear before price reflects it.  

Tiny LightPath was an example the other day, when it broke out technically a day before an early preliminary quarterly report that actually wasn't surprising, aside an admission of 'lead time' concerns; a response to 'too much' new business perhaps (ultimately a good sign). I would think Elon Musk's airborne 'Tweet' about a potential LBO was a big stock example; and in that case one that might have violated procedures.

Then there's something else to contend with besides 'trade': Turks in Ankara encouraging converting Lira into Gold (who would; not Erdogan I bet ); Russians threatening 'economic warfare' if new sanctions come forth from Washington; China playing 'hardball' instead of using wisdom to sort out the situation; and now Trump pressuring Turkey a bit more, with the doubling of tariffs on Turkish steel & aluminum.  

Turkey it seems lives on foreign borrowings. I might mention that Deutsche Bank is down yet again; because systemic risk in Turkey affects them as the primary EU bank doing business there. 

I am not ready to pile-in to buy Turkish Lira even at the maximum pressure; although one play to play an eventual recovery might just be DB stock. To a degree Paris-based BNP Paribas is also heavily involved in Turkey.

Currencies aren't 'pegged' these days; so you get dramatic consequences that allow a slower-motion evolution but they still play out big changes. In this case, civilized nations can only hope Erdogan somehow is replaced in a country where only the retrogressive Eastern citizens really back him. To say I have sympathy for Western-oriented Turks who hoped to be partners in the EU, or who are educated; would be an understatement. Erdogan on the 'right' is about as helpful to Turkey as (on the 'left') Maduro is to people suffering in Venezuela.   

At the same time there are variables (like 'trade & tariff' resolution versus a continuation of the global insecurities and unknowns); as well as realizing a 'trade deal' with China indeed may allow prices to 'rip' higher temporarily; but we've suspected that's down the road after we get a more meaningful S&P correction while rotation into the broader market, as I've speculated, will be insufficient to offset pressures on (mostly) FANG's.

In sum, 'contagion' in Turkey is just an example of what can happen. Who has noticed the mess that is the Russian stock market and of course the huge declines in China and the Emerging Markets I've called 'submerging markets' and warned to avoid all year long.  

The instability overseas has shuffled a lot of funds into the USA, probably a part of what has restrained US Treasuries from ramping higher sooner. I think Turkey needs a policy shock by allowing a normalized central bank response  if the bankers aren't all in jail yet. And in Turkey I have a prescription to turn things around... get rid of Erdogan or if not, get him to dramatically reverse his counterproductive policies by first of all dismissing all charges against normal people he persecuted. But like Russia, that's a non-starter unless it's done very smartly. Otherwise, he's of course mostly fearful of being overthrown. (I suspected he engineered the phony coup a couple years ago; and he is not at all smart like Putin.)

Technically, the stock market has been languishing in most sectors while the S&P misled markets, by giving an impression of trend-channel strength mostly because of FANG stability (which is evolving into vulnerability) that helped mask both rotation and reallocation into less volatile sectors.  

The market is not yet at key "moving average" support challenges; but that can happen swiftly if things fall apart. And will likely be 'after-the-fact' from the perspective of where many stocks are before that confirmation.     

Some sort of 'truce' needs to occur, for the markets, more so with China  than with Turkey but ultimately both need to occur. Probably you'll first get a policy chance right where I am at the moment: as the EU might start revisiting migration policies which Brussels thinks they control (that includes 'allocation' for migration); when in-reality member states recently have increased implementing their own sovereign policies, whether these very erudite representatives (and that's all they are despite protestations, as they try to project an aura of power or authority that's really ambivalent if one thinks about it).