Morning Notes – Tuesday March 21, 2017

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • The futures are higher
  • Moving sideways since 9:30 PM on March 20 – between 2376.75 and 2373.25
  • Odds are for a sideways to up day; watch for break above 2376.75 and below 2372.50 for change of fortunes

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul were up; Tokyo, Sydney and Mumbai were down
  • European markets are lower
  • Dollar index is lower; USD/JPY, GBP/USD and EUR/USD are higher;
  • Commodities are mixed – crude oil and NatGas are up; gold, silver and copper are down
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 2.473% on March 20 down from March 20 close of 2.501%; 30-years closed at 3.090% down from 3.113%

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2368.94, 2358.18 and 2354.54
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2379.49, 2385.71 and 2390.01
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2376.75 high of 3:30 AM and break below 2372.50, the low of 9:30 PM on March 20

Pre-Open

  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +3.75, Dow by +13.00 and NASDAQ by +11.25
  • On Monday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2370.00 and the index closed at 2373.47 – a spread of about +3.50 points; futures closed at 2370.25 for the day; the fair value is -0.25

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

Monthly
  • Confirmed Uptrend
  • Uptrend resumption since Feb 08, 2016 after a pull back of -15.2%
Weekly:
  • Candlestick for the last week, Friday March 17, was a  green bullish engulfing, over a small red doji candle – small body, and relatively larger upper and lower shadows
  • Did not breach earlier high
  • An up week – seventh out of last ten weeks
  • Broke above a down-sloping flag on November 14, 2016; first target of 2285.92 and second target of 2363.14are achieved
  • Last swing low, 2083.79, was the low on November 4, 2016
  • Above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA
Daily
  • Another small red candle near the bottom of previous red candle body
  • Still below the high of the flag pole
  • Intraday range was 0.9%; less than 1.00% since December 29;
  • Breaking out from an up-sloping channel that is in effect since December 27
  • Above 100-day, 200-day, 50-day, and 20-day SMA/EMA
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows
  • Last swing low 2263.62
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • At the down trend line from the high of 2:00 AM on March 16; generally drifting up since 2:00 PM on March 20
  • Broke below the sideways move of March 16-17; another sideways move since 6:00 PM on March 19
  • Upswing since 10:00 AM on March 14
  • Uptrend is under pressure
  • Above flat 20-bar EMA and 50-bar EMA
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Finding Resistance at high of 10:30 Am on March 20; forming an uneven inverse head-and-shoulder pattern; neck line is at 2376.00; a break above it will have a target near 2386.50
  • Sideways move since 9:30 PM on March 20; between high of 2376.75 and low of 2373.50
  • Down trend since 3:30 AM on March 16; lower lows and lower highs;
  • Above flat-to-rising 20-bar EMA and 50-bar EMA

Previous Session

U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Monday March 20. NASDAQ Composite was the only one to advance, but by only 0.53 points. Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up early session gains and S&P 500 traded most of the time in red.