Last Friday was a good day for indexes as both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were able to close near the highs of the week, while Thursday's losses in the Russell 2000 (IWM) were reversed by Friday's narrow range day near the previous day's highs.
Indexes are all well-placed to kick on, but it's the Russell 2000 that really needs to do it. The Russell 2000 ($IWM) still has Wednesday's spike high to reverse, but if it's able to generate a daily close that negates this high, it will also register as a close above its 200-day MA - another significant positive.
We can see on the weekly chart of the Russell 2000 ($IWM) that the high price touched a convergence of 20-week, 50-week, and 200-week MAs. The technical picture for this time frame is firmly bearish, which is why a good performance into Thanksgiving is critical to getting this index back on track.
The weekly charts for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq do look a lot more healthy. Since the 'bear trap' three weeks ago in the S&P 500, we have had a good bounce off the mid-line of stochastics [39,1] and are on the verge of a new MACD trigger 'buy' to turn technicals net positive.
The Nasdaq sits in a similar predicament to the S&P 500 having also navigated its own 'bear trap', and is ready for a fresh MACD trigger 'buy' above the bullish zero line.
With a short trading week, most of the action we want to see will come today, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Although for the Russell 2000 ($IWM) it will likely take until the end of the year before the weekly chart can be said to be past the worst of it, and plenty can still happen before then.