Morning Notes – Thursday November 5, 2020

Directional Bias For The Day:

  • S&P Futures are higher;
  • The odds are for an up day; the daily bias since October 12 is down to sideways; elevated volatility – watch for the break below 3453.50 for change of sentiments
  • Key economic data report:
    • Unemployment Claims ( 751K vs. 740K est.; prev. 758K ) at 8:30 AM
    • Prelim Nonfarm Productivity ( 4.9% vs. 3.6% est.; prev. 10.1%) at 8:30 AM
    • Prelim Unit Labor Costs (-8.9% vs. -10.0% est.; prev. 9.0%) at 8:30 AM
    • Fed Funds Rate ( <0.25% est.; prev. <0.25%) at 2: PM
    • FOMC Statment at 2:00 PM

Directional Bias Before Open:

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

Key Levels:

  • Critical support levels for S&P 500 are 3486.25, 3440.22, and 3405.17
  • Critical resistance levels for S&P 500 are 3515.11, 3527.94, and 3549.91
  • Key levels for E-mini futures: break above 3508.25, the high of 6:00 AM and break below 3453.50, the low of 2:00 AM

Pre-Open

  • On Wednesday at 4:00 PM, S&P futures (December 2020) closed at 3435.00 and the index closed at 3443.44 – a spread of about -8.50 points; futures closed at 3435.00 for the day; the fair value is 0.00
  • Pre-NYSE session open, futures are higher – at 8:30 AM, S&P 500 futures were up by +64.25; Dow by +394, and NASDAQ by +297.50

Markets Around The World

  • Markets in the East closed higher
  • European markets are higher
  • Currencies:
    Up Down
    • EUR/USD
    • GBP/USD
    • AUD/USD
    • NZD/USD
    • Dollar index
    • USD/JPY
    • USD/CHF
    • USD/CAD
    • INR/USD
  • Commodities:
    Up Down
    • NatGas
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • Copper
    • Platinum
    • Palladium
    • Coffee
    • Cotton
    • Cocoa
    • Crude Oil
    • Sugar
  • Bond
    • 10-years yield closed at 0.756%, down from November 3 close of 0.882%;
    • 30-years is at 1.526% down from 1.655%
    • 2-years yield is at 0.149% down from 0.168%
    • The 10-Year-&-2-Year spread is at 0.607 down from 0.714
  • VIX
    • At 26.47 @ 7:45 AM; down -3.10 from the last close; below 5-day SMA;
    • Recent high =  41.16 on October 16; low =  24.03 on October 9
    • Sentiment: Risk-On

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

Monthly
  • Uptrend under pressure
  • October 2020 was a red candle with long upper shadow and smaller lower shadows;
    • Stochastic %K is below %D from above 90; potential %D Bearish Divergence
    • RSI-9 below 60 from near 70; below a downtrend line that it broke above briefly in August
    • Retreating from the upper band of a 120-month regression channel;
  • The sequence of higher highs and higher lows is resumed
Weekly:
  • The week ending on October 30 was a large red candle with almost no upper shadow and a small lower shadow
    • Stochastic (9,1, 3): %K is below %D; below 20
    • RSI (9) is below 50
  • The week was down -195.43 or -5.6%; the 5-week ATR is 132.02
  • The weekly week pivot point=3315.11, R1=3396.27, R2=3522.59; S1=3188.79, S2=3107.63; S1/S2/S3 pivot levels were breached
  • A down week; second in the last five weeks and sixth in last ten weeks
  • Below 10-week EMA; above 39-week SMA, and 89-week SMA
  • Uptrend since March 23 Under Pressure
Daily
  • A green candle that gapped up at the open and maintained the gap; no lower shadow and upper shadow bigger than the real body;
    • %K is above %D, near 80;
    • RSI-9 rising to just below 50; above 8-day SMA
  • Above 20-day EMA, 50-day EMA, 100-day, and 200-day SMA
  • Uptrend Under Pressure
2-Hour (E-mini futures)
  • Trending up after bouncing off a support zone between 3198.00 and 3235.255 at 2:00 AM on October 30; broke above a Head-&-Shoulder pattern – achieved/approached 161.8% extension target near 3510.00
    • RSI-21 around 75; made Bearish Divergence at 4:00 AM
  • Above EMA10 of EMA50, which is above EMA20
  • Bias: Side-Up
30-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • Trending higher since 2:30 PM on October 30; near a resistance level around 3510.00
    • RSI-21 around 60
    • %K is crisscrossing %D
  • Above EMA20; which is above EMA10 of EMA50
  • Bias: Side-Up
15-Minute (E-mini futures)
  • Bollinger Band (20, 2.0) moving up since 3:30 PM on October 30
  • The Bollinger Band is relatively stable but large since 10:15 PM
    • Stochastic (9, 1, 3): %K is crisscrossing %D around 40
  • Bias: Up

Previous Session

Major U.S. indices closed mostly higher on Wednesday, November 4 in higher volume. Dow Jones Transportation Average traded closed down. Indices again gapped up at the open but traded down in the afternoon and gave up some gains after making the highs for the day. The S&P sectors were mixed.

From Briefing.com:

The S&P 500 rallied 2.2% on Wednesday, as the prospect of a divided Congress appeared to outweigh the fact that there was no presidential winner announced. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 3.9% amid strength in its mega-cap/growth components. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.3% while the Russell 2000 increased just 0.1%.

[…]

Accordingly, the health care (+4.5%), communication services (+4.3%), information technology (+3.8%), and consumer discretionary (+3.1%) sectors did the heavy lifting, while the materials (-1.7%), utilities (-1.6%), financials (-1.3%), and industrials (-1.0%) sectors closed sharply lower.

[…]

The 2-yr yield declined one basis point to 0.15%, and the 10-yr yield declined 11 basis points to 0.77%. The U.S. Dollar Index declined 0.1% to 93.49. WTI crude futures rose 4.1%, or $1.54, to $39.16/bbl.

[…]
  • The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index for October checked in at 56.6% (Briefing.com consensus 57.3%), versus 57.8% in September. October marked the fifth straight reading above 50.0% — the dividing line between expansion and contraction — but it was the lowest reading since May.
[…]
  • The trade deficit for September narrowed to $63.9 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$64.4 billion) from $67.0 billion in August, as export growth ($4.4 billion) outpaced import growth ($1.2 billion). The key takeaway from the report is that global trade activity improved, evidenced by the uptick in both exports and imports in September, yet that improvement belies the major hit to global trade activity amid the pandemic, evidenced by the fact that exports decreased 17.4% year-to-date to $329.0 billion while imports decreased 12.4% to $290.4 billion.
  • The weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index decreased 3.8% following a 1.7% increase in the prior week.
  • The ADP Employment Change report for October estimated 365,000 jobs were added to private-sector payrolls (Briefing.com consensus 600,000). The September reading was revised higher to 753,000 from 749,000.
[…]
  • Nasdaq Composite +29.2% YTD
  • S&P 500 +3.6% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average -2.4% YTD
  • Russell 2000 -3.2% YTD