Morning Notes – Monday February 12, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are higher;
  • A horizontal channel is emerging on 30-minute chart – low 2530.00 and high near 2726.00
  • Odds are for an up day but probably a sideway move from pre NYSE open levels with elevated volatility – watch for break above 2655.00 and break below 2623.00 for a change of fortunes
  • No Key economic data due:

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East were mixed – Shanghai, Mumbai and Seoul were up; Hong Kong and Sydney were down; Tokyo was closed
  • European markets are up
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • EUR/USD
    • AUD/USD
    • USD/CAD
    • Dollar index
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • NZD/USD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Crude Oil
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Palladium
    • Sugar
    • NatGas
    • Coffee
    • Cotton
    • Cocoa
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.844%, down from February 9 close of 2.869%;
    • 30-years is at 3.123%, down from 3.136%
    • 2-years yield is at 2.081%, up from 2.069%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.788 up from 0.782

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2597.43, 2569.23 and 2532.69
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2638.67, 2650.73 and 2711.34
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2655.00, the high of 4:00 AM and break below 2623.00, the low of 6:00 PM on Sunday

Pre-Open

  • On Friday , at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2618.50 and the index closed at 2619.55 – a spread of about -1.00 points; futures closed at 2619.50 for the day; the fair value is -0.50
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +30.50; Dow by +294.00; and NASDAQ by +69.00

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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 February 9 was a large red bodies candle with -5.2% decline following -3.9% decline with a bearish engulfing candle
  • Last week’s pivot point=2638.54, R1=2744.40, R2=2869.24; S1=2513.70, S2=2407.84; S1/S2/S3 were breached;
  • A down week; second in last five weeks and third 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
  • Uptrend under pressure; in correction territory – more than 10% below the recent high
  • Potential reversal day candle; large intra-day decline turned into an rally, which, however, closed off the highs
  • The 38.2% Fibonacci retracement from the lows of February 2016 is near 2465.50; the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement from June 2016 lows is near 2534.86 and the index low on Friday 2532.69
  • 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 50-day EMA and 100-day SMA but above 200-day SMA
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Bounced off the lows of 2530.25 at 12:00 PM on February 9, testing the low of 2529.00 on February 5; at the resistance of EMA10 of EMA50 at 2726.75;
  • RSI-9 rising from the lows of 19.35 at 2:00 PM on February 8; nearing 65
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since August 29, 2017 is broken
  • Above 20-bar EMA, which is below EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Down-Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Potential double bottom or a horizontal channel emerging – two lows of 2529.00 at 11:30 PM on February 5 and 2530.25 at 1:30 PM on February 9 with an intermediate high of 2726.75 at 11:00 AM on February 7
  • RSI-14 is hugging 65 since 6:30 PM on February 11
  • Above 20-bar EMA which is above 50-bar EMA
  • Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways since 9:15 PM on February 11
  • The band started to contract during the Asian session
  • RSI is hugging 65 since 6:30 on February 11
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K bouncing off 15.15 at 6:45 AM to near 80
  • Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Most major U.S. indices closed higher on Friday February 9. Dow Jones Transportation Average closed down. The indices were heavily in red by mid-day bit then they turned around and closed higher, but off the highs, which prevented them from making hammer candlestick pattern. The volume was higher than previous day. Market was down most for the week in over two years.

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