Bulls gave back 25% of Thursday’s substantial gains in the final minutes of the session, presumably to preserve some buying power for Friday. A robust surge would hit the 24,837 [corrected] rally target of the pattern shown, but buyers will have to do a little better than that to leave themselves in good shape for next week. Specifically, they’ll need to surpass the 24,977 ‘external’ peak to remain in command Sunday evening. It lies exactly 494 points above and is crucial to the health of the intraday charts. If the Indoos were to close above the peak ahead of the weekend, that would add to a picture of short-term strength. But you should set a screen alert at 25,449, where an even more important peak was recorded nine days earlier. It is the most significant supply obstacle the Dow will have faced since the initial bounce off early February’s lows. ______ UPDATE (April 15, 5;08 p.m. EDT): Last week’s tedium changed nothing in the analysis given above, although I’ll mention that a pullback to the green line (24,012) would trip a ‘mechanical’ buy signal. Traders keen on leveraging it can interpolate using DIA. (Please note that the 24,837 target given above corrects a 50-point error.)_______ UPDATE (April 16, 5:25 p.m.): Today’s 200-point rally was most unimpressive, since there were no significant obstacles in its path.  Let’s see how well buyers handle the two impediments shown in this chart. _______ UPDATE (April 17, 11:22 p.m.):  Today’s equally unimpressive 213-point rally topped a millimeter from the lower target, 24837, so the jury is still out. _______ UPDATE (April 19, 7:22 p.m.): If the Indoos continue their retreat from Tuesday’s high, expect them to fall to at least 24,042, a crystal-clear midpoint support.  If this occurs early in the session, don’t hesitate to bottom-fish using DIA calls or stock.  The equivalent target is 240.26.