Morning Notes – Monday July 23, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are down; moved up from a low of 2792.50 at 10:00 PM on Sunday;
  • Odds are for a down-to-sideways day – watch for break above 2802.50 and break below 2797.oo for clarity
  • Key economic data due:
    • Existing Home Sales (5.38M vs. 5.46M est.) at 10:00 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai, Hong Kong and Mumbai closed up; Tokyo, Sydney and Seoul were down
  • European markets are down
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • Dollar index
    • EUR/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • USD/INR
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • USD/CAD
    • AUD/USD
    • NZD/USD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Crude Oil
    • NatGas
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Coffee
    • Cotton
    • Cocoa
    • Platinum
    • Palladium
    • Sugar
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.908%, up from July 20 close of 2.895%;
    • 30-years is at 3.047%, up from 3.031%
    • 2-years yield is at 2.604%, up from 2.595%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.304, down from 0.300

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2799.77, 2789.24 and 2871.53
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2806.90, 2809.70 and 28112.05
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2802.50, the high of 8:00 AM and break below 2797.00, the low of 7:00 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Friday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (September contract) closed at 2803.25 and the index closed at 2801.83 – a spread of about +1.50 points; futures closed at 2800.75 for the day; the fair value is +2.50
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the downside  – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -1.00; Dow by -11.00; and NASDAQ by -18.00

Directional Bias Before Open

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

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 July 20 was a small doji candle
  • Last week’s pivot point=2802.61, R1=2815.98, R2=2830.13; S1=2788.46, S2=2775.09; R1 pivot level was breached;
  • A third up week in a row; third in last five weeks and seventh in last ten weeks
  • Breaking above an ascending triangle but still within an upsloping flag; a 100% extension target would be near 3070.00 level
  • 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; Last swing high, 2872.87, was during the week of January 22, 2-018; the low since the last swing high is 2532.69 during the week if February 5, 2018
  • Above 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA and above 89-week SMA
  • Uptrend resumed
Daily
  • A small red candle with small upper shadow and smaller lower shadow
  • %K is below %D above 90;
  • Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
  • Uptrend resumed
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Drifting down since the high of 2818.25 at 2:00 PM on July 18; below a downtrend line
  • RSI-9 rising from a low of 32.56 at 8:00 PM on July 22 after making a bullish divergence
  • Below 20-bar EMA; which is below EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Up-Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Moving down in steps since 12:30 PM on July 17; forming a descending triangle; made a triple bottom near 2793.00;
  • RSI-9 is rising since Sunday night from a low near 34.00 above 50
  • At 50-bar EMA, which is above 20-bar EMA
  • Bias: Down-Side
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving down-to-sideways since 10:00 PM on July 19;
  • The band expanded from 7:45 PM on July 22 to 1:15 AM with price mostly moving along the lower band; narrow since 1:30 AM
  • RSI between 40 and 65 since 00:15 AM; nearing 65
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K crossed below %D at 8:30 AM after making a divergence
  • Bias: Down-Side

Previous Session

Most major U.S. indices closed lower on Friday July 20. NYSE Composite closed higher. The volume was mixed. S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite traded in higher volume and others in lower volume. The price range was small.

For the week, most indices closed higher. Russell 2000 was down. The volume was higher. Only two S&P sectors were down – Utility and Real Estate.

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