S&P Futures are higher; moving higher since 10:30 PM on Tuesday
Competing patterns in play – bullish inverse head-&-shoulder pattern on 30-minute chart and bearish engulfing on daily chart and an up-sloping flag on 30-minute chart; resistance to overcome between 2764.00 and 2770.00, i.e. between 50% and 61.8% retracement of bearish engulfing candle
Odds are for an up day – watch for break below 2745.25 for a change of fortunes
Key economic data:
Prelim GDP ( 2.5% vs. 2.5% est. ) at 8:30 AM
Chicago PMI (61.9 vs. 64.2 est. ) at 9:45 AM
Pending Home Sales (-4.7% vs. 0.4% est. ) at 10:00 AM
Markets Around The World
Markets in the East were down
European markets are mixed – Germany, U.K., France and Italy are higher; Spain, Switzerland and STOXX 600 are lower
Currencies:
Up
Down
Dollar index
USD/CHF
AUD/USD
USD/CAD
EUR/USD
GBP/USD
USD/JPY
NZD/USD
Commodities:
Up
Down
Crude Oil
Gold
Silver
Palladium
Sugar
NatGas
Copper
Platinum
Coffee
Cocoa
Cotton
Bonds
10-yrs yield is at 2.890% down from February 26 close of 2.908%;
30-years is at 3.147%, down from 3.174%
2-years yield is at 2.274%, up from 2.266%
The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.616 down from 0.642
Key Levels:
Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 2722.62, 2713.74 and 2697.77
Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 2772.63, 2789.15 and 2796.15
Key levels for eMini futures: break above 2754.75, the high of 4:00 AM and break below 2745.25, the low of 7:00 AM
Pre-Open
On Tuesday, at 4:00 PM, S&P future (March contract) closed at 2743.50 and the index closed at 2744.28 – a spread of about -0.75 points; futures closed at 2747.50 for the day; the fair value is -4.00
Pre-NYSE session open, futures price action is to the upside – at 9:00 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +7.50; Dow by +77.00; and NASDAQ by +29.00
Directional Bias Before Open
Weekly: Uptrend Under Pressure
Daily: Uptrend Under Pressure
120-Min: Up-Side
30-Min: Down-Side
15-Min: Down-Side
6-Min: Side
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 bearish engulfing candle 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
Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day SMA and 200-day SMA
Uptrend under pressure
2-Hour (e-mini future)
Moving sideways since 4:00 PM on Tuesday after falling back in the horizontal channel that it had broken to the upside on February 23;
RSI-9 bouncing off 25 and not approaching 50
At/below 20-bar EMA and at/above EMA10 of EMA50
Bias: Up-Side
30-Minute (e-mini future)
Broke below a double top on Tuesday and achieved 261.8% extension target
Forming an inverse head-&-shoulder pattern since 3:30 OM on Tuesday; approaching the neck line after forming the right shoulder; break above will have 100% extension target near 2770.50
RSI trending up since 3:30 PM on Tuesday from a low of 25.6; rising above 50 after making a small knee
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 sideways with an up bias since midnight
The band is mostly narrow since 1:30 AM
RSI is between 40 and 65 since 11:45 PM on Tuesday; bouncing up from above 40 at 7:15 AM and nearing 65
The Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is bouncing from near 0 at 7:15 AM; above 70 after making a small knee at 8:15 AM
Bias: Down-Side
Previous Session
Major U.S. indices closed lower on Tuesday February 27, however, the volume was lower for Dow Jones Industrial Average and Dow Jones Transportation Average and higher for S&P 500, NASDAQ Composite and Russell 2000. Major indices made bearish engulfing candlestick lines and the high for the day is likely to create resistance on any advance.
