Trading Nation

‘I’m so excited, because no one’s excited’: Market technician Ralph Acampora

Acampora’s bull case for stocks
VIDEO4:0104:01
Acampora’s bull case for stocks
Big Apple comeback in store?
VIDEO3:0003:00
Big Apple comeback in store?
Here's how I'm playing the gold miners to the upside
VIDEO2:5602:56
Here's how I'm playing the gold miners to the upside

A key bullish indicator for the market is the lack of bullishness among most investors, according to famed market technician Ralph Acampora of Altaira Capital Partners.

"I'm so excited, because no one's excited," he said.

The Nasdaq on Tuesday hit its first all-time intraday high in more than a year, while the large-cap S&P 500 creeps to record levels day after day.

But Acampora, who joined CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Tuesday, believes that stocks are just starting to ramp up.

The key, says Acampora, lies in the market's increasing breadth. While the S&P 500 and other big indexes are hitting new highs, small to mid-cap stocks have also been performing well, with the Russell 2000 index hitting a one-year high on Monday.

What's more, Acampora sees even the market's struggling sectors rising to the challenge. While the industrials and technology sectors have performed under expectations this year, the technician predicts a turnaround, given the impressive performance of many of these sectors' stocks. And the long-struggling financials are the best-performing sector over the past month.

"There are stocks like Texas Instruments, Microsoft [and] the old tech names, they haven't even started yet," Acampora said. "[Including] Apple and Facebook, this market has so much more to go."

"We just need a nice catalyst to get this market going again," he added.

That catalyst could come in the form of another positive jobs report. July's numbers crushed estimates, contributing to a more positive economic outlook following a mediocre earnings season.

That, of course, could still change. From Acampora's point of view, the back and forth of the current presidential election cycle could pose problems later on by rendering the market unpredictable, and in the eyes of investors, risky. But that aside, the technician doesn't see too much that could hurt the market.

"When [the negative] dialogue starts to peter out, people will start seeing their favorite stocks creeping up and making new highs," he said. "That's going to bring in money from the sidelines."