Some good old fashioned human judgment and pivot analysis here. On 2/11-12, I noticed that of the 5 main USA indexes, SPX, NDX, INDU, RTY and NYA, INDU held up the best. So that in addition to a VIX and VXD reversal signal from major pivots, timing window 2/11-15, bearish some bearish sentiment extremes, and most especially the amount of indexes all holding yearly levels, led to the speculative buy call 2/12 on both DIA and oil.
I called it "speculative" for the simple reason that nothing was above any pivots yet, and my preferred method is to long above pivots and avoid, hedged or short below. Later after the shuffle at the end of February, INDU / DIA / YM was still the leader and so first choice. Last week still the leader, with DIA & YM clearly holding their YP level for 5 days *before* the big jump on 3/11.
This wasn't the case last year or even 2014; NDX was usually the leader (of these 5 majors; IBB even better). But this year IBB is getting crushed and dragging down NDX. So that is why I shifted with the post on 3/12 - if the leader INDU is strong and holds levels, bull is alive. Other analysts are chiming in now after the jump above the D200 MA and breadth etc, but really DIA has been nothing but incredible from 2/24 and then especially from 3/1.
"But now it may be time to shift tune. INDU / DIA / YM has been the pivot leader on the rally. [...] INDU was the first cash index to close above its FebP (fractionally on 2/17) with others still below, and likewise the first to close above a long term pivot on 3/4 above its 1HP, where the others hadn't done that yet. And really YM and DIA were the best tells last week, clearly holding major support before the big jump at the end of the week. On Friday both SPX and INDU leaped above all pivots on Friday, but with INDU the current leader the market call here is:
Bull alive and kicking above 17138 (the highest of the INDU pivots, the Q1P) and still more likely than bear with INDU above its YP at 17048."