Morning Notes – Thursday February 15, 2018

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are higher; moving higher since 9:00 AM on February 14
  • Odds are for an up day – watch for break below 2704.00 for a change of fortunes
  • Key economic data due:
    • PPI (0.4% vs. 0.4% est.) and Core PPI (0.4% vs. 0.2% est.) at 8:30 AM
    • Empire State Manufacturing Index (13.1 vs. 17.7 est.) at 8:30 AM
    • Philly Fed Manufacturing Index (25.8 vs. 21.5 est.) at 8:30 AM
    • Unemployment Claims (230K vs. 229K est.) at 8:30 AM
    • Capacity Utilization ( 77.5% vs. 78.0% est.) at 9:15 AM
    • Industrial Production (-0.1% vs. 0.2% est.) at 9:15 AM

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East were up – Shanghai and Seoul were closed
  • European markets are up
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • EUR/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • USD/CAD
    • Dollar index
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • AUD/USD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • Platinum
    • Palladium
    • Sugar
    • Coffee
    • Cocoa
    • Crude Oil
    • NatGas
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Cotton (unch.)
  • Bonds
    • 10-yrs yield is at 2.911%, down from February 14 close of 2.913%;
    • 30-years is at 3.155%, down from 3.177%
    • 2-years yield is at 2.193%, up from 2.168%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.718 down from 0.745

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2648.87, 2637.08 and 2622.45
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2727.67 2738.11 and 2763.39
  • Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2719.50, the high of 4:30 AM and break below 2704.00, the low of 8:30 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Wednesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2698.75 and the index closed at 2698.63 – a spread of about +0.00 points; futures closed at 2697.00 for the day; the fair value is +1.75
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +18.00; Dow by +208.00; and NASDAQ by +55.50

Directional Bias Before Open

  • Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
  • Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
  • 120-Min: Down-Side
  • 30-Min: Up
  • 15-Min: Up
  • 6-Min: Up-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
  • Another green body with almost no upper and lower shadows; closed above the large red body of February 8; nearing the resistance of 2727.67, the high reached on February 7 bounce
  • 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; broke above the resistance of EMA10 of EMA50 at 2726.75; nearing a resistance high
  • RSI-9 in an uptrend since 2:00 PM on February 8; staying above 40 since 2:00 Pm on February 9; around 75 since 2:00 PM on February 14
  • Sequence of higher highs and higher lows since August 29, 2017 is broken
  • Above 20-bar EMA and above EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Down-Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Above an uptrend line since 1:30 PM on February 9
  • 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; nearing the upper limit
  • RSI is mostly above 50 since 10:00 AM on February 14; coming down from above 75 reached during European session
  • At 20-bar EMA which is above 50-bar EMA
  • Bias: Up
15-Minute (e-mini future)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) is moving upward since 1:30 PM on February 14
  • The band contracted for sometime during Asian session; again expanding since 3:00 AM
  • 7:15 PM on February 13; sudden expansion following CPI news; price hugging the lower band
  • RSI mostly moved alone 65 line from 12:45 PM on February 14 to 5:45 AM; it has come off it a bit and is bouncing off above 40
  • The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K turned up from 4.44 at 7:30 AM and is now nearing 80
  • Bias: Up

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed higher on Wednesday February 14. The volume was higher than the previous day. Most indices have risen above the big decline on February 8.

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