S&P Futures are higher; moving higher since 6:30 AM; within a horizontal channel between 2722.50 and 2698.75, since 4:00 PM on Wednesday
Competing forces in play – bearish pressure on daily and 2-hour charts; bounce from oversold on 30-minute and 6-minute charts
Odds are for a down day I greater volatility – watch for break above 2722.50 for a change of fortunes
Key economic data:
Core PCE (0.3% vs. 0.3% est.) at 8:30 AM
Personal Spending ( 0.2% vs. 0.2% est.) at 8:30 AM
Unemployment Claims (210K vs, 226K est.) at 8:30 AM
ISM Manufacturing PMI (est. 58.7) at 10:00 AM
Markets Around The World
Markets in the East were mixed – Shanghai and Hong Kong were up; Tokyo, Sydney and Mumbai were down; Seoul was closed
European markets are lower
Currencies:
Up
Down
Dollar index
USD/JPY
USD/CHF
NZD/USD
USD/CAD
EUR/USD
GBP/USD
AUD/USD
Commodities:
Up
Down
Sugar
Coffee
Crude Oil
NatGas
Gold
Silver
Copper
Platinum
Palladium
Cocoa
Cotton
Bonds
10-yrs yield closed at 2.868% on February 28 down from February 27 close of 2.908%;
30-years closed at 3.127%, down from 3.174%
2-years yield is at 2.250%, up from 2.266%
The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.618 down from 0.642
Key Levels:
Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2697.77, 2676.35 and 2648.87
Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2735.61, 2748.18 and 2758.18
Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2722.50 the high of 3:30 AM and break below 2698.00, the low of 6:30 AM
Pre-Open
On Wednesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2713.50 and the index closed at 2713.83 – a spread of about -0.25 points; futures closed at 2714.50 for the day; the fair value is -1.00
Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is mixed – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +3.50; Dow up by +24.00; and NASDAQ down by -6.50
Directional Bias Before Open
Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
120-Min: Side-Down
30-Min: Down-Side
15-Min: Down-Side
6-Min: Down
The trend and patterns on various time frames for S&P 500 are:
The week ending on February 23 was a small green candle with almost no upper shadow and small lower shadow following a large green bodied candle with +4.3% advance, which had followed a -5.2% decline previous week
Last week’s pivot point=2730.94, R1=2764.12, R2=2780.93; S1=2714.13, S2=2680.95; no pivot levels were breached;
An up week; two in a row, third 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
Below 10-week EMA; at 39-week SMA and above 89-week SMA
Uptrend under pressure
Daily
A large red candle with shaved bottom and small upper shadow following bearish engulfing candle; index declining from between 61.8% and 78.6% retracement of decline from February high
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 20-day EMA; at 50-day EMA; above 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
Uptrend under pressure
2-Hour (e-mini future)
Moving down since 10:00 AM on February 27 in steps; sideways consolidation around 271000 since 4:00 PM on Wednesday
RSI-9 mostly fluctuating between 25 and 50 since 10:00 AM on February 27
Below 20-bar EMA, which is below EMA10 of EMA50
Bias: Side-Down
30-Minute (e-mini future)
A horizontal channel is emerging since 4:00 PM on Wednesday – high near 2722.50 and low near 2703.00
RSI mostly below 50 since 10:30 AM on February 27 with one head-&-shoulder pattern above it
Below 20-bar EMA which is below 50-bar EMA
Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)
Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways since 10:00 PM on Wednesday
The band contracted for few bars after midnight; expanded at 1:30 AM
RSI is mostly between 40 and 65 since 1:00 AM
The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K made a bullish divergence at 6:45 AM and is nearing 80
Bias: Down-Side
Previous Session
Major U.S. indices declined on Wednesday February 28, following a bearish engulfing candle on Wednesday. The volume was higher except for Dow Jones Transportation Average.
