After a scary mid-October dip, stocks are already up about 10 percent from their lows. But according to widely respected technician Ralph Acampora, the director of technical analysis at Altaira Limited, stocks are still set to go higher into the end of the year.
"We've got good moves coming between now and the end of the year," he said Tuesday on CNBC's "Futures Now." "So I'm very optimistic."
First of all, the up-and-down action over the past few months is pointing the way to new highs, he says. The Dow Jones Industrial Average first rose to a July peak, then fell in August, then rose to a new high in September, then fell hard in October, then rose sharply from that low. We are still enjoying that fifth, bullish move, Acampora said, and it is a broad one, which indicates that the rally is on firm footing.
Dow could pass 20K by end of 2015: Jeremy Siegel
The historical indicators also point higher, he says.
"If you look back into history, in midterm election years, the last two months of the year have been very, very strong," Acampora said. In addition, "the third year of a president's term in office is usually the strongest of all four years. So we've got a lot of wind to our backs."
Acampora predicts that the S&P will rise to 2,100 by the end of the year, and that the Dow rises to 18,000 by the early part of next year. At that point, Acampora will be looking to small and mid-cap stocks to "confirm" the strength in the major indices. Otherwise, a correction may follow.
However, in the near-term, his message is clear: "Hang in there, guys; we're going higher."
—By CNBC's Alex Rosenberg.
Watch "Futures Now" Tuesdays & Thursdays 1 p.m. ET exclusively on FuturesNow.CNBC.com!