Morning Notes – Wednesday January 10, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are lower; moving down since 2:00 PM on January 9
  • Below a down trend line from the highs on 30-min chart; emerging head-&-shoulder pattern
  • Emerging up-sloping bear flag on 15-min chart
  • Odds are for a down day – watch for break above 2749.25 for change of fortunes
  • Key economic data due:
    • Import Prices (0.1% vs. 0.4% est.) at 8:30 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mostly lower – Shanghai and Hong Kong closed up
  • European markets are mixed – Germany, France, Switzerland and STOXX 600 are down; U.K., Spain and Italy are up
  •  Currencies:
    Up Down
    • EUR/USD
    • AUD/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • USD/CAD
    • Dollar index
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Crude Oil
    • NatGas
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Cotton
    • Cocoa
    • Palladium
    • Sugar
    • Coffee
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.594% up from January 9 close of 2.546%;
    • 30-years is at 2.944% up from 2.887%
    • 2-years yield is at 1.981% up from 1.977%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.613 up from 0.569

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2745.45, 2737.60 and 2727.92
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2759..03, 2764.04 and 2768.95
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2745.00, the low of 3:30 AM and break below 2737.25, the low of 5:30 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2753.00 and the index closed at 2751.29 – a spread of about +1.75 points; futures closed at 2752.25 for the day; the fair value is +0.75
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the downside – at 8:45 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -8.50; Dow by -89.00; and NASDAQ by -35.00

Directional Bias Before Open

  • Weekly: Up
  • Daily: Up
  • 120-Min: Up-to-Side
  • 30-Min: Side-to-Down
  • 15-Min: 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 January 5 was a large green candle with almost no upper and lower shadows; the change was +2.6%, which is the largest change since the week closing on November 11 2016, almost thirteen months ago
  • Last week’s pivot point 2722.99; R1=2763.61, R2=2784.08; S1=2702.52, S2=2661.90; R1/R2/R3 were breached; last all 3 resistance levels were breached was the week closing on December 1 and following week ne pivot levels were breached
  • An up week;  fourth 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
  • Above 10-week EM; above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA
  • Confirmed uptrend
Daily
  • A doji candle with small upper shadow and smaller lower shadow
  • RSI-14 divergence is nullifying as RSI is almost at the previous high
  • Last pattern, a down-sloping flag in June that 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
  • Above 20-day EMA but above 50-day EMA; Above 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
  • Pivot Point=2752.6; R1=2757.67, R2=2764.04; S1=2746.39; S2=2741.48; R1/R2 were breached
  • Confirmed Uptrend
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Futures are moving higher since 4:00 PM on December 29 in steps; drifting down since 12:00 PM on January 9; at the previous swing low
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since 10:00 AM on November 2 and since August 29 with few exceptions; reasserted on January 3;
  • Below 20-bar EMA, at 50-bar EMA
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Moving down since 2:00 PM on January 9;
  • Emerging head-&-shoulder pattern; at the neck near 2736.75
  • RSI-14 declined from a high of 73.3 at 2:00 PM on January 9 to a low of 24.14 at 5:30 AM; it has bounced above 40
  • Below 20-bar EMA, which is below 50-bar EMA
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) has been moving down 3:00 PM on January 9
  • The band contracted during the Asian session and started to expand at 2:15 AM; price was hugging the lower band till 7:00 AM
  • An up-sloping flag is emerging since 5:45 AM; a break below will also trigger the Head-&-Shoulder pattern mentioned under 30-min chart
  • MFI-14 declined to 7.64 at 3:00 AM it bounced up but could not reach 50; is oscillating between 40 and 20 since then
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K declined to 0 at 5:30 AM; since then it is rising in a zigzag and crossed above 8-0 at 8:15 AM

Previous Session

Most major U.S. indices closed higher on Tuesday January 9. Market opened higher and made all time highs by mid-day. then they declined and closed near the lows. Russell 2000 was down for the day.

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