Morning Notes – Monday, January 30, 2023

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are lower at 9:00 AM; bouncing up since 6:30 AM
  • The odds are for a down day with a good chance of a sideways to an up move from the pre-open levels around 4050.00 with elevated volatility – watch for a break above 4058.25 and a break below 4040.00 for clarity
  • No major economic data report is due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4029.38, 4013.29, and 4005.28
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4048.70, 4068.83, and 4094.21
  • The key levels for E-mini futures are a break above 4058.25, the high at 4:15 AM, and a break below 4040.00, the low at 6:30 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (March 2023) closed at 4084.00, and the index closed at 4070.56 – a spread of about +13.50 points; the futures closed at 4084.25; the fair value is -0.25
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures were lower – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -34.00, Dow by -162, and NASDAQ by -141.75

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mostly lower
  • European markets are mostly lower – Switzerland is up
  • Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
Up Down
  • EUR/USD
  • GBP/USD
  • USD/JPY
  • AUD/USD
  • NZD/USD
  • INR/USD
  • Dollar index
  • USD/CHF
  • USD/CAD
  • Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
    • Energy futures are lower
    • Precious metals are mixed
    • Industrial metals are mostly lower
    • Soft commodities are mostly higher
  • Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
    • The 10-year yield closed at 3.566, up +5.5 basis points from two weeks ago;
    • The 30-year is at 3.670%, up +4. basis points;
    • The 2-year yield is at 4.199%, down -2.1 basis points;
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at -0.633, up from -0.709
    • The 30-Year-&-10-Year spread is at 0.104, down from 0.112
  • VIX
    • At 20.18 @ 7:00 AM; up from the last close; above the 5-day SMA;
    • Recent high = 23.76 on January 3; low = 17.97 on January 27
    • Sentiment: Risk-Off

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

Weekly:
  • The week ending on January 2 was a Bullish Engulfing candle following a small red Harami candle breaking above the downtrend line from an all-time high made in the last week of December 2021
    • Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is above %D;
    • RSI-9 is around 60
  • The week was up +104.01 or +2.7%; the 5-week ATR  is 142.86
  • An up week, third in the last five weeks, and fifth in the previous ten weeks;
  • The weekly pivot point=4037.94, R1=4126.83, R2=4183.09; S1=3981.68, S2=3892.79; R1/R2 pivot levels were breached
  • Above 10-week EMA and 39-week SMA; below 89-week SMA
  • Uptrend Resumed
Daily
  • A green candle with almost a small shadow and an upper shadow a bit bigger than the real body breaking above the downtrend line from the high of January 4, 2022, 
    • Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above %D; near 90
    • RSI-9 is near 70; above 8-DMA
  • Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA, and 200-day SMA;
  • Uptrend
2-Hour (E-mini futures)
  • Moving up since December 28; higher highs and higher lows since 10:00 AM on January 19; declined from a high around 4110.on at 4:00 PM on Friday to around 4050.00; broke above a Cup-With-Handle pattern on January 26 – the first target near 4120.00 is almost achieved, and the second target is around 4210.00
    • RSI-21 drifted down to just above 30 from near 75 and after making a Bearish Divergence
    • Below EMA20, but above EMA10 of EMA50 
  • Bias:  Up-Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • Moving down since 3:00 PM on Friday within an uptrend since 10:30 AM on January 25; down more than 60 points;
    • RSI-21 has declined to around 40 from near 65
    • Below EMA20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Side-Down
15-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) has been moving down since 7:45 PM
  • The Bollinger Band has been contracting a bit since 8:00 AM,
  • Bias: Down

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher Friday, January 27, in mixed volume. NYSE Composite closed down. Dow Jones Transportation Average and S&P 500 traded in lower volume.

The major indices opened higher and declined until late morning before turning around and rising till the final hour of trading, when they again decline.

For the week, the major US indices closed higher in mostly higher volume. The indices in Asia and Europe mostly closed higher. The dollar index closed lower. Ths energy futures were down, the precious metals and industrial were mixed, and the soft commodities closed up. The US Treasury Yields were mixed. All but two S&P sectors – Healthcare and Utilities – closed up for the week.

From Briefing.com:

The stock market closed out the week on an upbeat note, notwithstanding some late day selling that cut into today’s gains.

[…]

Roughly half of the 11 S&P 500 sectors logged a gain led by the consumer discretionary (+2.3%) sector. The energy sector (-2.0%) was the worst performer by a wide margin due to falling oil prices and weakness in Chevron. WTI crude oil futures fell 2.0% to $79.45/bbl.

  • Nasdaq Composite: +11.0% YTD
  • Russell 2000: +8.5% YTD
  • S&P Midcap 400: +7.8% YTD
  • S&P 500: +6.0% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: +2.5% YTD
[…]
  • December Personal Income 0.2% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%); Prior was revised to 0.3% from 0.4%; December Personal Spending -0.2% (Briefing.com consensus -0.1%); Prior was revised to -0.1% from 0.1%;
  • December PCE Prices 0.1% (Briefing.com consensus 0.0%); Prior 0.1%; December PCE Prices – Core 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%); Prior 0.2%
  • […]
  • December Pending Home Sales 2.5% (Briefing.com consensus -1.0%); Prior was revised to -2.6% from -4.0%
  • January Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment – Final 64.9 (Briefing.com consensus 64.6); Prior 64.6
[…]