BALTIMORE (Stockpickr) -- Apparently, one of Mr. Market's New Year's resolutions was to shed some weight. So that's exactly what the broad market has done in 2015, correcting to the tune of 2.3% since the calendar flipped to January. Walk that snapshot back to the final week of December, and the correction ratchets up to 4%. Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 10 Dividend Stocks And that percent change only tells part of the story. The price action has been extremely one-sided in January, with more than 81% of the S&P down in the first couple of weeks of the year. As I write, nearly one-fifth of the big index is down 9% or more. Yup, it's called a correction. Despite the investor anxiety that's been ramping up in stocks, the fact remains that the orderly "buy the dips market" we've been in for the last few years is still very much intact. So as the S&P comes down to test a key price floor, it makes sense to start thinking like a bull again. That's why, today, we're taking a technical look at five blue-chip stocks that look ready for some breakout gains in 2015. First, a little on the technical toolbox we're using here: technicals are a study of the market itself. Since the market is ultimately the only mechanism that determines a stock's price, technical analysis is a valuable tool even in the roughest of trading conditions. Technical charts are used every day by proprietary trading floors, Wall Street's biggest financial firms, and individual investors to get an edge on the market. And research shows that skilled technical traders can bank gains as much as 90% of the time. Every week, I take an in-depth look at big names that are telling important technical stories. Here's this week's look at five big stocks to trade this week. Must Read: 10 Stocks Billionaire John Paulson Loves Express Scripts Up first is $61 billion pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts . This stock has been a serial outperformer vs. the S&P 500 for the better part of the last year. For every point the S&P climbed in 2014, ESRX climbed one-and-a-half. But don't worry if you've missed the upside in this health care play. Shares look ready to kick off a second leg higher here. ESRX is currently forming an ascending triangle, a bullish price pattern that's formed by horizontal resistance above shares up at $86 and uptrending support to the downside. Basically, as ESRX bounces in between those two key price levels, it's been getting squeezed closer and closer to a breakout above that $86 price ceiling. When that happens, we've got our buy signal. Relative strength is the side-indicator that adds confidence to the ESRX trade. This stock's relative strength line has been making higher lows since this summer, an indication that Express Scripts is outperforming the rest of the market in good times and bad ones. As long as that new relative strength uptrend remains intact, shares of this stock should keep outperforming. Must Read: 11 Stocks Warren Buffett Loves Westpac Banking The exact opposite has been happening in shares of Westpac Banking . Instead, this Australian bank has been selling off, moving lower in lockstep with the commodity-liked Aussie dollar. But WBK may be oversold here -- and while the price action leading up to 2015 has been ugly, it's another ascending triangle pattern that's signaling potential upside in WBK. The buy signal comes on a breakout above resistance at $27.50. Why all of that significance at that $27.50 level? It all comes down to buyers and sellers. Price patterns like the ascending triangle are a good quick way to identify what's going on in the price action, but they're not the actual reason a stock is tradable. Instead, the "why" comes down to basic supply and demand for WBK's stock. The $27.50 resistance level is a price where there has been an excess of supply of shares; in other words, it's a spot where sellers have previously been more eager to step in and take gains than buyers have been to buy. That's what makes a breakout above $27.50 so significant -- the move means that buyers are finally strong enough to absorb all of the excess supply above that price level. It's all about being reactionary here: wait for the breakout, then buy. Must Read: 10 Stocks George Soros Is Buying SAP German software giant SAP is another foreign name that's starting to look "bottomy" after spending most of the last year in selloff mode. In the last 12 months, SAP has shed approximately 20% of its share price, grinding investors down along the way. But a classic reversal pattern points to upside potential ahead for patient shareholders. The pattern in play in SAP right now is a double-bottom setup, a pattern that’s spotted by two swing lows that take place at approximately the same level. The bottoms are separated by a swing high in between them – that peak is the breakout level that tells traders when the reversal pattern is complete. In the case of SAP, that level is at $72. The breakout above that $72 level means that we'll probably see a retest of prior highs from the summer. In the meantime, momentum adds some extra confirmation to the move; 14-day RSI made higher lows while price bottomed out at the same level this week. That's a bullish divergence that indicates buying pressure is building in SAP. Be sure to wait for $72 to get taken out before you put money on this trade. Must Read: 10 Stocks Carl Icahn Loves Apple Tech behemoth Apple has looked corrective lately, at least in the short-term. But like the broad market, it's been closing in on a key support level in recent sessions -- and that's providing traders with an attractive buying opportunity in January. The good news is that you don't need to be an expert technical trader to figure out what's been going on in shares of Apple; shares have been bouncing their way higher in a well-defined uptrend since April of last year. The price channel on the chart provides a high-probability range for shares of AAPL to stay stuck within. Put another way, every successive test of trend line support has provided buyers with a low-risk, high-reward opportunity to scale into shares. We've only had three tests of support in AAPL's channel over the past year -- that's enough to use it as a valid signal but not enough that traders have actually had enough opportunities to use it much. That's a very good reason to buy the bounce this week. When you do, it makes sense to park a protective stop on the other side of the most recent low at $105. Must Read: 5 Stocks Warren Buffett Is Selling Goldman Sachs Last but not least is investment bank Goldman Sachs . Just like Apple, Goldman has been bouncing its way higher in a well-defined uptrend since last April, moving higher on every test of that same trend line support level. Unlike Apple, GS has tested the bottom of the channel more frequently this past year, making its sixth touch this week. With shares in "make or break mode" at support for the sixth time, it makes sense to buy the next bounce higher. Don't buy until GS bounces. Waiting to buy off a support bounce makes sense for two big reasons: it’s the spot where shares have the furthest to move up before they hit resistance, and it’s the spot where the risk is the least (because shares have the least room to move lower before you know you’re wrong). Remember, all trend lines do eventually break, but by actually waiting for the bounce to happen first, you're ensuring GS can actually still catch a bid along that line before you put your money on shares. If you decide to buy on the next white-bar day, I'd recommend keeping a tight stop on this one. -- Written by Jonas Elmerraji in Baltimore. Must Read: Warren Buffett's Top 10 Dividend Stocks Follow Stockpickr on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. At the time of publication, author was long AAPL. Jonas Elmerraji, CMT, is a senior market analyst at Agora Financial in Baltimore and a contributor to TheStreet. Before that, he managed a portfolio of stocks for an investment advisory that returned 15% in 2008. He has been featured in Forbes , Investor's Business Daily, and on CNBC.com. Jonas holds a degree in financial economics from UMBC and the Chartered Market Technician designation. Follow Jonas on Twitter @JonasElmerraji
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