Morning Notes – Monday, October 11, 2021

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are lower at 8:00 AM;
  • Prices have been drifting lower since 10:30 AM on October 7
  • The odds are for a down with a good chance of sideways to up move from pre-open levels around 4365.00 – watch for a break above 4383.00 and a break below 4352.25 for more clarity
  • The bond market is closed
  • No key economic data report due during the day:

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 4365.57, 4347.61, and 4326.66
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 4386.22, 4402.38, and 4414.31
  • Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 4383.00, the high of 2:00 AM and break below 4352.25, the low of 7:30 PM

Pre-Open

  • On Friday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2021) closed at 4383.00 and the index closed at 4391.34 – a spread of about -8.25 points; futures closed at 4382.25 for the day; the fair value is +0.75
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures are lower – at 8:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were down -19.00; Dow by -81; and NASDAQ by -109.00

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mostly higher – Seoul closed lower; Shanghai was closed for trading;
  • European markets are mixed – the UK, Spain, and Italy are up; Germany, France, Switzerland, and STOXX 600 are down
  • Currencies (Compared to two weeks ago):
    Up Down
    • Dollar index
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • AUD/USD
    • INR/USD
    • EUR/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • USD/CAD
  • Commodities (Compared to two weeks ago):
    • Energy futures are higher
    • Precious metals are mixed
    • Industrial metals mostly lower
    • Soft commodities are mostly higher
  • Treasuries (Compared to two weeks ago)
    • 10-years yield closed at 1.571%, up +16.1 basis points from two weeks ago;
    • 30-years is at 2.076%, up +20.8 basis points;
    • 2-years yield is at 0.302%, up +5.1 basis points;
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 1.257, up from 1.147
  • VIX
    • At 20.11 @ 7:30 AM; up from the last close; at/below 5-day SMA;
    • Recent high = 24.89 on October 1; low =  17.63 on September 24
    • Sentiment: Risk-Off-Neutral

The trend and patterns on various time frames for S&P 500:

Monthly
  • September 2021 was a relatively large Bearish Engulfing with almost no upper and lower shadows; made all-time intra-month high;
    • Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K turned below %D from near 100;
    • RSI-9 just below 70 from above 80; Bearish Divergence
    • Above the upper band of a 120-month regression channel;
  • Confirmed Uptrend: sequence of higher highs and higher lows
Weekly:
  • The week ending on October 8 was a green Harami spinning top candle
    • Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is below %D but turning up from below 30;
    • RSI-9 bouning up from 50
  • The week was up +34.30 or +0.8%; the 5-week ATR increased to 124.46
  • An up week; second in the last five weeks, and sixth in the last ten weeks
  • The weekly pivot point=4366.75, R1=4454.56, R2=4517.78; S1=4303.63, S2=4215.72; No pivot levels were breached
  • Below 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA; at/89-week SMA
  • Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily
  • A relatively small red candle at EMA50; small lower and upper shadows;
    • Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is above %D; above 70
    • RSI-9 is just above 50
  • At/below 20-day EMA; at/above 50-day EMA; above 100-day SMA; above 200-day SMA
  • Correction
2-Hour (E-mini futures)
  • Drifting lower since 10:00 AM on October 7;
    • RSI-21 has declined from near 80 at 10:00 AM on Thursday to just below 40
  • Below EMA20; at/above EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Down-Side
30-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • Trending down since 10:00 AM on October from 4421.50 to a support level around 4360.00
    • RSI-21 is moving along around 45
    • Below EMA20, which is below EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Up-Side
15-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • The Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving sideways with a down bias since 11:00 PM
  • The Bollinger Band is narrow and stable
    • Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is crisscrossing %D
  • Bias:  Side-Down

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly lower on Friday, October 8 in mixed volume.  Dow Jones Transportation Average and NYSE Composite closed higher. S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite trade in higher volume.

For the week, the major US indices closed mostly higher in lower volume. Markets in Asia mostly closed higher and the European markets closed higher. The dollar index inched up, energy and precious metals futures were mixed but the industrial futures closed higher. The soft commodities were mostly higher. The US Treasury yields closed up. All but three S&P sectors – Healthcare, Real Estate, and Telecom – closed higher for the week.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 decreased 0.2% on Friday in a tight-ranged session, as investors contemplated the Fed’s policy course following the release of a mixed September employment report. The Nasdaq Composite (-0.5%) and Russell 2000 (-0.8%) underperformed, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.03%) was relatively unchanged.

[…]

Specifically, private sector payrolls increased by 317,000 (Briefing.com consensus 385,000), the unemployment rate improved to 4.8% (Briefing.com consensus 5.1%) from 5.2% in August, and perhaps more noteworthy, average hourly earnings rose 0.6% (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%). The latter reflected lingering supply-driven inflation pressures.

[…]

Notably, WTI crude futures briefly topped $80 per barrel for the first time since 2014 while the 10-yr yield increased three basis points to 1.60%.

[…]

The 2-yr yield was unchanged at 0.31%, contributing to some curve-steepening activity in the Treasury market. The U.S. Dollar Index decreased 0.1% to 94.12.

[…]
  • S&P 500 +16.9% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average +13.5% YTD
  • Nasdaq Composite +13.1% YTD
  • Russell 2000 +13.1% YTD