Sam Collins
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Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (NYSE: VEU) seeks to track the performance of the FTSE All-World ex-US Index, which is made up of approximately 2,200 stocks of companies located in 46 countries.

Sometimes we see a chart that technically seems to have it all, and this is one.

United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) provides technology products and services to the building systems and aerospace industries.

Its stock has built a strong base that began in October 2008. In early July, UTX flashed a bullish gold cross. Then, in mid-August, it broke out from a quadruple-top.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) engages in the development, production, and sale of a range of generic and branded pharmaceuticals, biogenerics, and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) worldwide.

The long-term chart shows a stock that has never been in a bear market.

The recent resistance line is merely a pause in its long-term upward march, and it was broken by heavy buying in April. Teva ran to a new all-time high above $55, and then pulled back on profit-taking.

Family Dollar Stores Inc. (NYSE: FDO) operates a chain of discount retail stores. As one of the great "dollar stores," it often leads the retail group.

The chart is loaded with bullish technical signals, including a gold cross, a new buy signal from the stochastic, and a build up of buying volume.

Worldwide offshore oil and gas drilling contractor Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) has formed a massive bottom known as a cup-and-handle, which is a very bullish formation.

Coupled with a gold cross (also bullish), DO recently flashed a buy signal from the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) indicator.

If you're looking for the most accurate way to predict the direction a stock or the market is headed, technical analysis is it.

Of course, no chart pattern is accurate all of the time (which is why technical analysis is more of an art than a science), but it's the closest you're going to get to a sure thing in the stock market.

So I'm offering up six technical trades today. Each of these stocks' charts are giving off extremely bullish signals and look ready to run higher.

Even if prices appear to be clawing their way through the overhead supply at around Dow 8,000 and S&P 500 825 to 875, the going is getting tougher.

The highest that the S&P has achieved so far was the high of Thursday, April 2, at 846, before it was turned aside on a minor reversal this Tuesday. Volume has been on the low side on both advances and declines, but this week that was no doubt due to the impending holiday weekend.

As the three-day Easter weekend approaches, volume is declining as both traders and investors shy away from a market that is fraught with uncertainty.

Not only are the Q1 earnings in doubt, but longer-term economic analysis by the ChangeWave team indicates that we can expect to see a trading range of 700 to 900 on the S&P 500 for at least several months. And this is supported by my own technical analysis.

After a discussion of many of the risks peculiar to this economic cycle, the ChangeWave team appraises the big economic forces that "simply have to play out over time."

Monday was a day of crosscurrents and even though late buying recovered some of the earlier losses, it was the first loss in five days -- leaving the bulls wondering if the buying had reached its apex.

The Dow dropped below 8,000 yesterday, but that might not be as significant as the overdone internal indicators on all of the major indices. These indicators tell us when markets are overbought or oversold based on historically relevant studies.

With the best four-week performance since 1938 behind us, with the markets up more than 23%, many analysts are wondering whether that sort of performance can be maintained.

This weekend, Drew Kanaly of Kanaly Trust said he was "highly skeptical" that the rally could run any more than a couple more weeks, and attributed it to extreme oversold readings following Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's "ill-received speech of Feb. 10."

And Mark Arbeter of Standard & Poor's agreed with him. But Mark is still looking for the S&P 500 to run to "875 to 890 before a major correction sets in."

Despite some last-minute profit-taking, stocks ended Thursday with impressive gains -- spurred on by strong economic news from China, a seemingly successful meeting of the G-20, and an easing by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) of mark-to-market rules for banks.

The gains were made despite worse-than-expected weekly jobless claims. Initial claims jumped 12,000 to 669,000 versus an expected total of 650,000.

Even though Friday's and Monday's selling moderated some of the overbought internal indicators, those indicators -- chiefly the Moving Average Convergence/Divergence (MACD) and Stochastic -- are still very overbought, and momentum has fallen to the point where it will take some hefty volume to make a meaningful turn up again.

And speaking of volume: Just when the bulls need a big chunk of buying to penetrate into the massive overhead beginning at S&P 500 820, volume contracted yesterday to just 1.5 billion shares traded on the NYSE.

Yesterday was the last day of the quarter and, as usual, institutions were positioning some stocks that already had gains, a practice that Wall Street calls "prettying up portfolios."

But the last 45 minutes of trading may have revealed the true trend, as sellers drove the Dow down more than 115 points on the highest volume of the day.

The good news was that the major indices managed to hold above their respective 20-day moving average lines. But the S&P 500 failed to hold the 800 level, and many technicians felt that it was necessary to stay above that "psychological number" if the rally was to continue.

Monday's sell-off was caused by the forced resignation of General Motors' (NYSE: GM) chief, and the threat that both GM and Chrysler would face bankruptcy.

This classic example of a news-triggered correction, or perhaps even a confirmation of the bear market, came just as stocks were broadly overpriced.

In addition to a sell signal from most of the internal indicators (most graphic being the stochastic), the close below the psychologically important 800 number on the S&P 500 and the Dow's failure to surmount 8,000 sent a clear signal that prices are headed lower.

Most technicians agree that the rally from the January lows is now overextended, and whether you are basing the resistance on Fibonacci numbers at S&P 500 833 or 838, or various support and resistance lines at 836 to 850, or internal indicators, you would have to be an overenthusiastic bull to take many new positions now.

Even though the downside volume shrank to just 1.4 billion shares on Friday on the Big Board, there is other evidence to suggest that the current rally has already topped or is about to.