Wednesday brought the eighth day for this market to sit in range, the early strength didn’t hang around long and let the bears crawl in to close us still in range and slightly red. The volume on the NYSE, Nasdaq and futures all increased significantly to leave the best day on the week for participation. The TRIN closed at 1.15 bearish and the A/D and U/D lines sat negative but fairly neutral territory. Big whipsaw on market breadth today, showing that both sides were playing a lot of tug of war today. The VIX had the lowest close on the year at 28.56, intraday low is still 26.57 from May 20th. Gold closed down 70 cents to $954 an ounce and oil at $71.14 up $1.16 on the day.
Into Thursday the daily charts are leaving us with a slight bearish edge. All this range is letting every oscillator and moving average sag and start to point lower. That is what happens when you sit for eight days with no conviction. The key resistance levels are still overhead that I outlined last night at the 38.2% off the August highs to the May lows and this market is just not finding a catalyst to lift up there. Daily charts also left hanging man candles on the broader indexes and even on the key sectors and at the highs of this eight day range this could present itself with a reversal confirmation if we close lower Thursday.
Futures have rollover tomorrow morning to the September (U) 2009 contract. Rollover can usually slow the opening down while volume repositions and finds momentum. Which means plan to be patient in that first half hour and then things should shift enough to find some direction. With the lighter volume we’ve seen lately the split between the June and September contracts could really present the market with some spikey stuff so use caution and wait on the right time to step in. The S&P 500 (ES) traded the heaviest volume in nice days, that shows us that some volume was stepping out and getting positioned for rollover. The September contract only traded 399K which is very light but we will see that in the first half hour to forty five minutes tomorrow and then move along.
Economic data for the week (underlined means more likely to be a mkt mover): Thursday Futures rollover to Sept (U) contract, 8:30 Core Retail Sales, 8:30 Retail Sales, 8:30 Unemployment Claims, 10:00 Business Inventories, 10:30 Natural Gas Storage, 1:05 FOMC Member Lockhart Speaks. Friday 8:30 Import Prices, 9:55 Univ Of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, 9:55 Univ Of Michigan Inflation Expectations. Saturday G8 Meetings
Some earnings for the week (keep in mind companies can change last minute: Thursday pre market DLM, HOKU, LULU, SCHS and after the bell NSM, SGK. Friday nothing due out.
Futures charts are for September (U) contract NOT the June since we rollover Thursday morning.
NQ (Nas 100 e-mini) Thursday’s pivot 1491.50, weekly pivot 1479.25, monthly 1405.50. Support: 1486.50, 1483.75, 1481, 1477.25, 1472.50, 1466.25, 1458.50, 1447.50. Resistance: 1494.50, 1500.50, 1508, 1518, 1530.25
