Market close to hitting ‘all-clear’ signal that could mean upside ahead: Wall Street bull Tony Dwyer

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The market is close to hitting an “all-clear” signal that could mean there is more upside ahead, one of Wall Street’s biggest bulls told CNBC on Friday.

Tony Dwyer, chief market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, is looking at the S&P 500’s 10-week rate-of-change indicator, which measures the percent change in the index.

When it drops to minus 9 and then recovers to minus 5, “that’s your all-clear signal throughout the current cycle that the correction is over.” We’re not too far from that now, at around minus 6, he said on “Fast Money Halftime Report.”

Friday was the last trading day of November. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 ended a volatile month higher by 1.8 percent and 1.7, respectively, while the Nasdaq eked out a 0.3 percent gain.

The action followed a rough October that saw the Dow end down 5.1 percent for the month, its biggest one-month fall since January 2016. The S&P 500 had its worst October since September 2011.

“As long as the yield curve stays positive, investors should stay generally bullish, and you tactically move based on ridiculous levels of euphoria, when you have an environment ripe for volatility, versus recently where you have environments ripe for opportunity because you had that kind of I call it a whoosh … and then a retest.”

He has said he plans to stay bullish until the yield curve inverts, which means long-term rates are lower than short-term ones. Historically when that happens it has signaled a recession in the foreseeable future.

Dwyer sees four sectors that can lead the market to new highs.

“When the Fed pauses raising interest rates and you haven’t inverted the curve and shut down credit, the … four sectors that do the best are banks, industrials, tech and health care,” he said.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he considers the central bank’s benchmark interest rate to be near a neutral level, an apparent turn from his earlier remarks that it was a long way from neutral. He also said there is no preset policy path. The stock market soared on his change of tone.

The Fed is expected to hike rates in December. While the central bank’s most recent projection is for three increases in 2019, traders now see only one more hike fully priced in for next year.

However, Dwyer said he would wait for confirmation that the market is going to hit new highs.

“If you don’t make a new high … you are going to roll and you are going to roll hard,” he said.

— CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.

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