[isatrader]

Interesting, thanks for the reply. 
I guess I liken it to the action on the small caps $SML where the breadth data may have been signalling trouble, yet the chart itself was forming a triple top breakout and is now powering ahead once more. not suggesting the s&P will do the same, or even not, only time can tell, but the "period of consolidation" is indeed there for all to see
presumably you wouldnt have called $SML as 3
not trying to be facetious, just getting back into stage analysis and interesting to be able to get this debate after so long!

For me the small caps did enter into a Stage 3A period, which means "Looks as if a top is starting to form. Be sure to protect holdings with a close stop", as the weekly made a close below the 30 week MA, which I use as the first point to consider that a Stage change might be happening, and then failed to recover the pullback fully, and made a lower high in March. That's my confirmation point of the Stage change into early Stage 3A, as if a stock can't make a quick continuation after a pullback like that to the 30 week MA, then it becomes a stock that may potentially be moving into Stage 3. So I give it the Stage 3A rating, as it's usually still too early to tell still until there are more points of confirmation for a full Stage change. It then made a higher low around the slightly still rising 30 week MA, and then tested the top again, so looked to be making a volatility contraction pattern, which is a pattern that often resolves higher. So it had three months where it moved into early Stage 3A imo, but then made a continuation breakout, to return back to Stage 2 again.

I'm attaching an old chart of MMM back in 2005 where Stan has published his global trend alert where this was ranked as a stage 2B
I'll be interested to pull up some of his others. anyway as you say, it is a subjective matter

If that's a weekly chart with a 30 week simple moving average, then personally I'd class it as a Stage 3, as it had been swinging above and below the 30 week MA, which had turned down and had flattened out. Stage 2B means "Getting late in uptrend", which you could definitely describe that chart as, but I think the lower high and lower low, and then the move back above that lower high again but still well within the recent range would have made me put it into a Stage 3 classification personally from just that data. But I guess it could have been because of the recent near term higher high as to why it got a 2B rating, and not a 3, as it looked to be improving again.

However, what that chart doesn't show is the Mansfield RS indicator or the volume, which are both useful for determining the Stage fully on a stock, as well as the sector performance versus the market etc. So there may have been other reasons outside of just the price action as to why it was classed as a 2B and not a 3.