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S&P 500 stock chart putting up resistance

After a big rally, the U.S. stock market is running into “resistance,” a Wall Street term that describes what is akin to a price ceiling the market has trouble cracking after finding buyers there in the past.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 has rallied about 9% since its late August low. But the easy money off the bottom of its first 10%-plus price correction already has been made. Now the benchmark largecompany stock index has stalled out around prior price levels that launched rallies in the past.

After a relatively unchanged session Wednesday, which left the S&P 500 trading around 2,020, the index is again stumbling at a key resistance level: the 2,040-to-2,045 range that marks its average price over the past 100 days and lows touched in March and July, according to Robert Sluymer, a technical analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

Resistance works like this: If buyers bought in at those levels in the past, only to see stocks fall, they may be inclined to sell when they get back to even. That selling makes it harder for the market to trend higher — until, of course, it breaks out above that level and investors think there’s money to be made.

The problem? The S&P 500 made a run at 2,040 for four consecutive sessions but can’t take it out. The index closed within 3 points of 2,033 the first three days of the week, notes Andrew Adams of Raymond James. That action, he says, is a “definite sign of consolidation and possibly of (the rally) stalling out.”