Morning Notes – Monday March 5, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are lower; moving lower since 5:45 AM
  • Broke below an head-&-shoulder pattern on 6-minute chart at 8:45 AM
  • Competing patterns and forces in play – bullish inverse head-&-should pattern on 30-minute and 2-hour charts; bearish head-&-shoulder pattern on 6-minute chart; bearish candle formation on daily; strong finish on Friday, a bullish sign
  • Odds are for a down day to sideways move day with greater volatility – watch for break above 2685.75 and break below 2672.50 for change of fortunes
  • Key economic data:
    • ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI ( est. 58.9) at 10:00 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East were mostly down – Shanghai was up
  • European markets are mostly higher – Italy is lower
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • Dollar index
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/CHF
    • EUR/USD
    • USD/JPY
    • AUD/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • USD/CAD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • NatGas
    • Silver
    • Sugar
    • Cotton
    • Cocoa
    • Crude Oil
    • Gold
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Palladium
    • Coffee
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.837% down from March 2 close of 2.857%;
    • 30-years is at 3.121%, down from 3.131%
    • 2-years yield is at 2.209%, down from 2.245%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.628 up from 0.612

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2664.83, 2647.32 and 2637.08
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2696.25, 2721.72 and 2730.89
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2685.75, the high of 8:00 AM and break below 2675.50, the low of 3:30 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Friday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2690.00 and the index closed at 2691.25 – a spread of about -1.25 points; futures closed at 2690.25 for the day; the fair value is -0.25
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the downside – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -8.75; Dow by -66.00; and NASDAQ by -2.00

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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 March 2 was a large bearish engulfing candles with large upper and lower shadows
  • Last week’s pivot point=2709.24, R1=2771.16, R2=2812.07; S1=2629.33, S2=2567.41; S1/S2/S3/R1/R2 pivot levels were breached;
  • A down week; first after two up weeks, third in last five weeks and fourth 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 green candle; almost like a piercing candle but more like thrusting pattern, in which the close is below the mid point of previous candle’s real body, more of continuation pattern than a reversal; small upper and lower shadows
  • 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
  • Below 20-day EMA and 50-day EMA; above 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
  • Uptrend under pressure
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Forming an irregular inverse head-&-shoulder pattern; at a downtrend line from the high on February 27; at the broken-support-turned-resistance
  • RSI-9 rising since a low of 25.86 at 8:00 AM on March 2; moving around 50
  • At 20-bar EMA, which is below EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Down
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Emerging irregular inverse head-&-shoulder pattern; at a downtrend line resistance from the high of 2789.75
  • RSI between 40 and 65 since 10:00 AM on March 2
  • At 20-bar EMA which is at 50-bar EMA
  • Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is, mostly, moving sideway since 7:30 PM on March 1
  • The band contracted during Asian, expanded during European session and is contracting since 8:00 AM
  • RSI is mostly between 40 and 65 since 10:15 AM on March 2
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is moving around 20 since 7:00 AM
  • Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices advanced on Friday March 2. Market gapped up at the open and the mostly rose high closing near the high for the day.

For the week, major U.S. indices closed down relatively large real body. The upper and lower were almost equal to the real body. Most major indices made bearish engulfing candlesticks. All but Telecom sectors were down for the week.

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

 

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