Market Remarks

Morning Notes – Wednesday February 28, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are higher; moving higher since 10:30 PM on Tuesday
  • Competing patterns in play – bullish inverse head-&-shoulder pattern on 30-minute chart and bearish engulfing on daily chart and an up-sloping flag on 30-minute chart; resistance to overcome between 2764.00 and 2770.00, i.e. between 50% and 61.8% retracement of bearish engulfing candle
  • Odds are for an up day – watch for break below 2745.25 for a change of fortunes
  • Key economic data:
    • Prelim GDP ( 2.5% vs. 2.5% est. ) at 8:30 AM
    • Chicago PMI (61.9 vs. 64.2 est. ) at 9:45 AM
    • Pending Home Sales (-4.7% vs. 0.4% est. ) at 10:00 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East were down
  •  European markets are mixed – Germany, U.K., France and Italy are higher; Spain, Switzerland and STOXX 600 are lower
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • Dollar index
    • USD/CHF
    • AUD/USD
    • USD/CAD
    • EUR/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/JPY
    • NZD/USD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Crude Oil
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Palladium
    • Sugar
    • NatGas
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Coffee
    • Cocoa
    • Cotton
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.890% down from February 26 close of 2.908%;
    • 30-years is at 3.147%, down from 3.174%
    • 2-years yield is at 2.274%, up from 2.266%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.616 down from 0.642

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2722.62, 2713.74 and 2697.77
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2772.63, 2789.15 and 2796.15
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2754.75, the high of 4:00 AM and break below 2745.25, the low of 7:00 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2743.50 and the index closed at 2744.28 – a spread of about -0.75 points; futures closed at 2747.50 for the day; the fair value is -4.00
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +7.50; Dow by +77.00; and NASDAQ by +29.00

Directional Bias Before Open

  • Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
  • Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
  • 120-Min: Up-Side
  • 30-Min: Down-Side
  • 15-Min: Down-Side
  • 6-Min: Side

The trend and patterns on various time frames for S&P 500 are:

Monthly
  • Confirmed Uptrend
  • December 2017 closed higher; index has been higher for the nine straight months; it has only one down month, March 2017, since October 2016
  • Uptrend resumption since Feb 08, 2016 after a pull back of -15.2%
Weekly:
  • The week ending on February 23 was a small green candle with almost no upper shadow and small lower shadow following a large green bodied candle with +4.3% advance, which had followed a -5.2% decline previous week
  • Last week’s pivot point=2730.94, R1=2764.12, R2=2780.93; S1=2714.13, S2=2680.95; no pivot levels were breached;
  • An up week; two in a row, third in last five weeks and seventh in last ten weeks
  • Broke above a down sloping flag on April 24 2017;
    • flag-low was 2322.25 during 27-Mar-17 week; shorter flag-pole length is 317.19 and longer flag-pole length is 590.88;
    • 100% extension target of shorter flag-pole near 2639.41 is achieved; and the 161.8% extension target is near 2835.46
    • 61.8% extension target of longer flag-pole near 2687.41 is achieved; the 100% extension target is near 2913.13
  • Broke above a down-sloping flag on November 14, 2016;
    • the flag low was 2083.79 during 31-Oct-16 week; the shorter flag-pole length is 202.13 and the longer flag-pole length is 383.71;
    • 261.8% extension target of shorter flag-pole near 2612.97 is achieved
    • the 161.8% extension target of longer flag-pole near 2704.63 is achieved; the 261.8% extension target is near 3088.34
  • Last swing low, 2322.25, was the low on March 27, 2017
  • Below 10-week EMA; at 39-week SMA and above 89-week SMA
  • Uptrend under pressure
Daily
  • A large bearish engulfing candle between 61.8% and 78.6% retracement of decline from February high
  • Last big pattern, a down-sloping flag in June 2017, was broken to the upside on July 13, 2017; in August the index declined and tested the broken upper limit of the flag; since then the index has made three very small flags; it broke to the upside of the last flag on January 2
  • Bounced off 200-day SMA on February 9
  • Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
  • Uptrend under pressure
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Moving sideways since 4:00 PM on Tuesday after falling back in the horizontal channel that it had broken to the upside on February 23;
  • RSI-9 bouncing off 25 and not approaching 50
  • At/below 20-bar EMA and at/above EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Up-Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Broke below a double top on Tuesday and achieved 261.8% extension target
  • Forming an inverse head-&-shoulder pattern since 3:30 OM on Tuesday; approaching the neck line after forming the right shoulder; break above will have 100% extension target near 2770.50
  • RSI trending up since 3:30 PM on Tuesday from a low of 25.6; rising above 50 after making a small knee
  • At 50-bar EMA which is above 20-bar EMA
  • Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways with an up bias since midnight
  • The band is mostly narrow since 1:30 AM
  • RSI is between 40 and 65 since 11:45 PM on Tuesday; bouncing up from above 40 at 7:15 AM and nearing 65
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is bouncing from near 0 at 7:15 AM; above 70 after making a small knee at 8:15 AM
  • Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed lower on Tuesday February 27, however, the volume was lower for Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average and higher for S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000. Major indices made bearish engulfing candlestick lines and the high for the day is likely to create resistance on any advance.

  • S&P 500 Sectors
Up Down
  1. Consumer Discretionary
  2. Consumer Staples
  3. Energy
  4. Materials
  5. Industrials
  6. Finance
  7. Technology
  8. Heath Care
  9. Utility
  10. Real Estate
  11. Telecom

 

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