We had a wild session today. Buyers went right to work after the gap down this morning and ran the indices right up to resistance. Even the most perma of perma-bears had to be impressed with the display of buying power put on today. But, the indices still haven't broken free of the eariler summer highs. We're set up for maximum drama with tomorrow's jobs data. There's nothing to do now but wait and see how the market takes the news. It's a perfect setup for a breakout but you never know...
The Nasdaq still sits under 2,100. If the market like the jobs data in the morning I wouldn't be surprised to see the Naz gap up all the way to the 50-day moving average.
The S&P continues to be on the verge of a breakout...
One of the things I hate about indices that include NYSE stocks, like the S&P 500 and the Dow, is that they don't show you what really happened at the open. Because NYSE stocks often have delayed opens gaps don't show up on those index charts like they should. So here's the chart of SPY which shows youwhat really happened this morning in the S&P 500.
I'm grudginly changing the intermediate trends on the S&P and Russell. I've been holding back on the S&P because of the trading range and the fact that the 50 DMA was still declining. Since it's starting to turn up I think it's time to change the trend. I'm going to "lateral" on the Russell since it climbed above it's 50 DMA today. I could call it "up" but I wouldn't feel right about that since the Russell is still well within its trading range and under the May - June trendline.
| Trend | Nasdaq | S&P 500 | Russell 2000 |
| Primary | Down | Lat | Lat |
| Intermediate | Down | Up(+) | Lat(+) |
| Short-term | Up | Up | Up |
(+) Indicates an upward reclassification today
(-) Indicates a downward reclassification today
Lat Indicates a Lateral trend
Hi Mike,
Just curious about your bulish perspective. All index seen to be right below resistence.
shouldn't we be talking reversals at this point?
FYI, I like very much you post from yesterday about your trades. lol
[]'s
I don't think I'm bullish but the pressure right now is clearly on the bears. All I'm saying is that things are setup to breakout if the jobs report is good (bad?) enough. If not, we likely reverse again.
Hi Mike,
Really love your blog. I'm trying to get into swing trading and your website is a great read!
Recommend any books? I know the basics, just need to learn some strategies.
Thanks Nick. For books, take a look at the books in the bottom of the left column on the main page of my site and see the Books category of the archives (also linked in the left column). Alan Farley's Master Swing Trader is a great one to read.
The candle in the daily of the SPX delivered by
StockCharts is not correct. Open was at 1270. This
really gives a complete different picture. Never
trust your data provider. ;-)
Olaf,
All of my data providers (eSignal, TeleChart, StockCharts.com, Yahoo Finance, etc.) show the same open for the S&P at 1278.22. That's because of what i said above -- that's due to the way NYSE stocks open. B/c they don't all open at 9:30 they opens on the indices are almost never accurate. That makes it real hard to do candlestick analysis on the S&P and Dow.
:o Mmmh, something's strange. IB shows an open at 1270.
MarketWatch says Open 1270 with a Low at 1271 (!?),
the intraday chart opens at 1278, the
daily
at 1270.
Olaf, yes it's quite disturbing. I think there's something called an S&P theoretical index (I forget the exact name) which is calculates the index as if all the stocks opened at 9:30 on the dot. But your earlier point is well taken -- don't trust everything you see!
Nice blog by the way. Too bad I can't read German though :-)