No-Advice Disclaimer: This analysis is for informational purposes only and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Stock Market Outlook: March 22ns =
Downtrend

Author: J.Wenger ---- Published: March 22, 2026 ---- Last Updated: 2026-03-22
Disclosure: The author holds no material positions in the securities mentioned. See Editorial Policy & Disclosures for details.

The stock market outlook continues in a downtrend and price fell below long-term technical indicators.

Oil and Energy outperformed again, while Gold, Utilities, and Low Volatility underperformed.  The FOMC held rates steady, while investors were busy repricing risk across asset classes.

TREND ANALYSIS

The S&P500 ( $SPX ) dropped 1.9% last week, slicing through the 200-day moving average.  Price is now:
  • ~5% below the 50-day moving average
  • ~2% below the 200-day moving average
All 3 technical indicators remain bearish and have shown no signs of changing sides yet:

Technical analysis chart of $SPX showing 6 months of candlesticks with 21-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages, volume with EMA(50), ADX(14) with +DI and -DI, and OBV with MA(62) through 2026-03-22.

Technical Analysis – $SPX – 2026-03-22

PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS & COMPARISONS

Asset Classes

Oil ( $USO ) was the only asset to register a gain, while Gold ( $GLD ) led to the downside again after dropping 10%!  Gold, along with U.S. Bonds ( $IEF ), dropped to Bearish bias as well.

Performance comparison of major asset class ETFs ($USO, $IBIT, $GLD, $SPY, $VEA, $EEM, $IEF, $BNDX, $PCY, $DXY) showing 1-week, 4-week, and bias-shift returns relative to the U.S. Dollar.

Asset Class Performance vs. U.S. Dollar – 2026-03-22

S&P500 Sectors

Energy ( $XLE ) continues to resist the selloff, and Financials managed to finish in the green.  Utilities ( $XLU ) bore the brunt of the selling last week, though Industrials ( $XLI ) and Staples weren't far behind.  Consumer Staples and Real Estate ( $XLP, $XLRE ) dropped to bearish bias; Utilities fell to neutral.

Performance comparison of S&P500 sector ETFs ($XLC, $XLY, $XLP, $XLE, $XLF, $XLV, $XLI, $XLB, $XLRE, $XLK, $XLU, $SPY) showing 1-week, 4-week, and bias-shift returns.

S&P500 Sector Performance – 2026-03-22

S&P500 Investing Styles

In a strange twist, High Beta ( $SPHB ) outperformed and Low Beta ( $SPLV ) underperformed during last weeks selling!  Low Beta also dropped to bearish bias, putting the entire style space into risk-off.

Performance comparison of investment style ETFs ($SPHB, $SPLV, $IWO, $IJH, $IWF, $OEF, $IWN, $IJJ, $IWX, $MTUM, $QUAL, $SPHD, $POWA, $SPY) showing 1-week, 4-week, and bias-shift returns.

Style Performance vs. S&P500 – 2026-03-22

COMMENTARY

Markets

Oil and the US dollar are the only assets in bullish trends.  Equities remain risk off, despite being deeply oversold per most technical analysis techniques.  Even traditional safety plays, like Low Volatility and Utilities, have led to the downside during the past two weeks.  The sectors to watch from last week, Consumer Staples and Real Estate ( $XLP, $XLRE ), did indeed test their bias turning points.  Both failed. Just another reminder that when an asset class sells off, there are few, if any, places to hide.

The Volatility Index ( $VIX ) was flat on the weekly basis, but it's uptrend remains intact.  Bond volatility ( $MOVE ), or more accurately Treasury Yield Volatility, was and is the real story, as it continues the recent breakout.  The index jumped 28% on Friday to a reading of 108, in response to large moves in Treasury yields.

Why is the change in Treasury yields the real story? Because fixed income is the second largest market in the world behind currencies, and U.S. treasuries drive that market.  Sudden changes in treasury yields cause nearly every financial asset to be repriced, force portfolio managers to rebalance risk, and ultimately shift capital flows.

Case in point: Gold.  The ultimate safe haven asset dropped 10% last week and is now bearish bias, which seems counterintuitive.  Why?  When financial markets start to go sideways, traders sell what they can to cover what they must.  Gold had been winning bigly, especially if you were using leverage as many institutions do.  With the U.S. Dollar and Treasury's sharply higher, investors are forced to sell winning positions offset losing positions in other areas in order to rebalance, de-risk, or meet margin calls.  To a lesser extent, this behavior also explains some of the move in recent winning sectors like Materials and Industrials,

Macroeconomic Data and Policy

Headline PPI was flat year over year year at +3.4%.  Core PPI rose 20 bps +3.9% y/y.  Combined with CPI and PCE, the FOMC chose to leave rates unchanged.  And it's no longer clear when we'll see the next rate cut.  The spike in treasury yields actually caused probability markets to start pricing in rate hikes!

Geopolitics

Even for the best traders and investors are having a tough time in today's headline/event market. Financial markets hate uncertainty, and uncertainty is the only thing that certain at the moment. Our collective struggle is one of the side-effects from a "flood the zone" communication strategy:

"Flood the zone" is a political / media strategy designed to overwhelm, disorient, and distract by releasing large volume and/or rapid succession of news, accusations, or information.

When the strategy is applied to military actions involving a linchpin of the global energy market ( Oil and the Strait of Hormuz ), an element of uncertainty is injected into every supply chain on the planet.  Rising uncertainty equals rising risk, which you're seeing reflected in prices and interest rates real-time.

EYES ON THE HORIZON

The good news is that on the other side of the current turmoil are new opportunities.  The time will come to redeploy capital into assets, sectors, and styles with new bullish trends.

Next week is a lighter data release schedule, with data from two surveys incoming: Flash PMI and Michigan Consumer Sentiment.  Flash PMI compiles responses from purchasing managers on business conditions like employment, production, orders, pricing, deliveries, inventories, etc.

  • Monday: --
  • Tuesday: Flash PMI
  • Wednesday: --
  • Thursday: --
  • Friday: Michigan Consumer Sentiment

Best to Your Week!

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Content Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), Hedgeye, StockCharts.com, TradingEconomics.com, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Price and Volume charts provided courtesy of stockcharts.com.

Performance Methodology: All sector performance data is sourced from ThinkorSwim and reflects price‑only returns calculated using end‑of‑week closing data. Bias classifications follow a proprietary Invest Safely, LLC model and update only when trend conditions meet predefined thresholds. All calculations are consistent across every chart on this page.

Disclaimer: Invest Safely, LLC is an independent investment research and online financial media company. Use of Invest Safely, LLC and any products available through Invest‑Safely.com is subject to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Looking for more information on the Stock Market Outlook Signals? You'll find it here:



If you're interested in learning more about the relationship between price and volume, or how to find and trade the best stocks for your growth strategy, check out this book via the following Amazon affiliate link:

How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times and Bad.

It's one of my favorites.

In the past, I reviewed market outlook signals as if they were a mechanical trading system, while pointing out issues and making adjustments. The goal is to give you to give you an example of how to analyze and continuously improve your own systems.

For historical Elliott Wave commentary and analysis, go to ELLIOTT WAVE lives on by Tony Caldaro.

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The S&P 500 Composite Total Return Index (the "S&P") is a market capitalization-weighted index of 500 widely held stocks often used as a proxy for the stock market. Standard & Poor's chooses the member companies for the S&P based on market size, liquidity, and industry group representation. Included are the common stocks of industrial, financial, utility, and transportation companies. The S&P is not an index into which an investor can directly invest. The historical S&P performance results (and those of all other indices) are provided exclusively for comparison purposes only, so as to provide general comparative information to assist an individual in determining whether the performance of a specific portfolio or model meets, or continues to meet investment objective(s). The model and indices performance results do not reflect the impact of taxes.

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