An S&P 500 breakdown below this level could mean more pain for stocks, says Fairlead’s Katie Stockton

Published Thu, Sep 8 20229:31 AM EDTUpdated Thu, Sep 8 202210:15 AM EDT

There could be more pain to come in the stock market, according to Katie Stockton. The chart analyst and founder of Fairlead Strategies highlighted 3,815 as a key level to watch for in the S & P 500 on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Thursday. If the index falls below that, investors could suffer another big blow, she said. "We look for breakdowns to be confirmed – we always like to see a couple of weeks below a level to assign a new downside target – but that 3200 would be targeted by that breakdown," she said. "And as you know, 3,815 really isn't that far away." On Wednesday the S & P 500 closed higher, at 3,979.87. The major averages are still comfortably off their lows of the summer and are on track to snap a three-week losing streak. However, the downtrend has a lot of strength and investors shouldn't be too hasty, Stockton said. "What we're doing in our work is just trusting the downtrend and respecting the negative long-term momentum," she said. "Of course now also the market has negative short term momentum, and we don't want to fight against that. As much as we want the market to bottom just like everybody else, we don't want to get in front of it." Stockton suggested that sentiment in the market is "complacent" given the many concerns weighing on traders currently. "We saw the relief rally in the summer very short lived, very difficult to capture on the upside," she said. "It saw an immediate shift in market sentiment. That to me was somewhat disconcerting, that people are very willing to jump on board, especially in the high growth arena. Names that had downtrended came off their lows, people got excited about it, added exposure and now they're dealing with in some cases more than a full retracement of their gains." She highlighted Nvidia as a high-profile example. Stockton also noted the performance Teucrium Corn Fund, saying it's one of the few securities she could find with a long-term uptrend, adding that it's "really hard" to find that in stocks right now.