Morning Notes – Monday March 20, 2017

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • The futures are lower;
  • Moving, mostly, sideways since 4:00 PM on March 17 – between 2375.75 and 2368.75
  • Odds are for a sideways to down day; watch for break above 2375.75 and below 2368.50 for change of fortunes

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed mixed – Shanghai and Hong Kong were up; Sydney, Mumbai and Seoul were down; Tokyo was closed
  • European markets are lower
  • Dollar index, USD/JPY, and EUR/USD are higher; GBP/USD is lower
  • Commodities are mostly down – gold is up
  • 10-yrs yield closed at 2.501% on March 17 down from March 16 close of 2.522%; 30-years closed at 3.113% down from 3.135%

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2373.64, 2368.94 and 2358.18
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2385.71, 2390.01 and 2400.91
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2374.75 high of 6:00 PM on March 19 and break below 2368.75, the low of 10:00 PM on March 19

Pre-Open

  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the downside – at 8:15 AM, S&P 500 futures were down by -3.50, Dow by -8.00 and NASDAQ by -2.25
  • On Friday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (June contract) closed at 2373.00 and the index closed at 2378.25 – a spread of about +5.25 points; futures closed at 2375.25 for the day; the fair value is -2.50

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

Monthly
  • Confirmed Uptrend
  • Uptrend resumption since Feb 08, 2016 after a pull back of -15.2%
Weekly:
  • Candlestick for the last week, Friday March 17, was a  green bullish engulfing, over a small red doji candle – small body, and relatively larger upper and lower shadows
  • Did not breach earlier high
  • An up week – seventh out of last ten weeks
  • Broke above a down-sloping flag on November 14, 2016; first target of 2285.92 and second target of 2363.14are achieved
  • Last swing low, 2083.79, was the low on November 4, 2016
  • Above 39-week SMA and 89-week SMA
Daily
  • A small red candle near the bottom of previous red candle body
  • Still below the high of the flag pole
  • Intraday range was 0.9%; less than 1.00% since December 29;
  • Breaking out from an up-sloping channel that is in effect since December 27
  • Above 100-day, 200-day, 50-day, and 20-day SMA/EMA
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows
  • Last swing low 2263.62
2-Hour (e-mini future)
  • Generally drifting lower after the high made at 2:00 AM on March 16;
  • Broke below the sideways move of March 16-17; another sideways move since 6:00 PM on March 19
  • Upswing since 10:00 AM on March 14
  • Uptrend is under pressure
  • Above flat-to-rising 20-bar EMA and 50-bar EMA
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Sideways move since 4:00 PM on March 17; between high of 2373.25 and low of 2368.75
  • Down trend since 3:30 AM on March 16; lower lows and lower highs;
  • Below flat-to-falling 20-bar EMA and 50-bar EMA

Previous Session

U.S. indices closed mixed on Friday March 17. S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average declined. NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000 gained.

For the week, all advanced except for Dow Jones Transportation Average.