Morning Notes – Friday December 15, 2017

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are higher; moving up since 4:30 PM on December 14
  • Odds are for a sideways to up day – watch for break above 2664.75 and break below 2658.25 for change of fortunes
  • Key economic data:
    • Empire State Manufacturing Index (18.0 vs. 18.8 est.) at 8:30 AM
    • Capacity Utilization (est. 77.2%) at 9:15 AM
    • Industrial Production (est. 0.3%) at 9:15 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Mumbai and Seoul were up
  • European markets are mostly lower – U.K. is higher
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • Dollar index
    • EUR/USD
    • AUD/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • USD/CAD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Crude Oil
    • NatGas
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Sugar
    • Coffee
    • Cotton
    • Palladium
    • Cocoa
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 2.346% on December 14 down from December 13 close of 2.349%; 30-years closed at 2.710% down from 2.734%; 2-years yield is at 1.819%; the 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.527 down from 0.534

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2644.10, 2636.97 and 2632.71
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2658.89, 2663.49 and 2671.74
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2664.75, the low of 7:30 AM on December 13 and break below 2658.25, the low of 1:00 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Thursday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2655.25 and the index closed at 2652.01 – a spread of about +3.50 points; futures closed at 2656.00 for the day; the fair value is -0.75
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +8.00; Dow by +85.00; and NASDAQ by +18.50

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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:
  • The week ending on December 8 was a small red candle with small upper shadow and larger lower shadow
  • Last week’s pivot point 2647.15; R1=2669.54, R2=2687.59; S1=2629.10, S2=2606.71; No levels were breached
  • An up week;  third in last five weeks and eight 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 is near 2687.41
  • 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 is near 2704.63
  • Last swing low, 2322.25, was the low on March 27, 2017
  • Above 10-week EM; above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA
  • Confirmed uptrend
Daily
  • A red almost bearish engulfing; following through of Wednesday’s bearish candle; most of the price action of the day was down
  • RSI-14 divergence – on October 20 the RSI was 79.65 and the 2578,29, on November 8 the high was 2595.47 and the RSI was 72.50; on November 30, RSI-14 was 76.67 and the index was at 2657.74; on December 12 the index was 2669.72 and RSI was 74.77
  • Last pattern, a down-sloping flag in June that was broken to the upside on July 13; in August the index declined and tested the broken upper limit of the flag
  • Above 20-day EMA but above 50-day EMA; Above 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
  • Pivot Point=2657.37; R1=2662.73, R2=2673.45; S1=2646.65; S2=2641.29; S1/S2 were breached
  • Confirmed Uptrend
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Futures broke below a support, previous high, at 12:00 PM on Thursday; turning up after making a low at 4:00 PM; still below the broken support, which may become resistance
  • 14-bar RSI diverged and the futures broke below a support and a narrow horizontal channel;
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since 10:00 AM on November 2 and since August 29 with few exceptions is reasserted on November 21; it is again under pressure
  • Below 20-bar EMA, which is above 50-bar EMA
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Broke below a horizontal channel – high 2675.50 and low of 2666.25; the 161.8% extension target near 2651.25 was achieved; the 261.8% extension target is near 2642.00
  • Futures rising since 4:40 PM on Thursday; at the resistance, 2659.25, the low of 10:30 PM on December 12
  • At a flattening 20-bar EMA, which is below flattening 50-bar EMA
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Envelop and Bollinger Band moved down from early European session to early Asian session on Thursday; since then they are drifting up
  • The Bollinger Band (20 EMA, 2 stddev.) started contracting at 4:030 AM; price tagging the base; contained within the envelop (20 EMA, 0.196%)
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3) is falling since 6:00 AM after touching 80; %K crossed below %D

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed down on Thursday December 14. Most made bearish engulfing or similar patterns. Dow Jones Industrial Average made all time highs.

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