Friday, March 18, 2005
Issue Contents:
| 09:00 | The Day Ahead |
| 09:02 | Swing Scanner Results Thursday March 17, 2005 closing data |
| 09:04 | Market Statistics For Thursday March 17, 2005 |
| 09:08 | Wither Support? |
| 09:28 | Swing Trade Setups Featured charts for Friday March 18th |
| 16:15 | TrendVue Trader Talk Today's transcript. |
Good morning, its Friday March 18th, the 77th day of 2005. Today is also Quadruple Witching Day – the day when contracts for stock index futures, stock index options, stock options, and single stock futures all expire.
Import prices on the rise:
Prices of imported goods increased 0.8 percent in February as imported petroleum prices jumped 3.9 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. Excluding the 3.9 percent rise in petroleum prices, import prices rose a modest 0.2 percent. Import prices are up 6.1 percent in the past 12 months, including a 29.6 percent rise in petroleum prices. Prices excluding oil are up 2.9 percent year-over-year.1
Pre-market, stock index futures are trading dead within yesterday’s range.
US Market Calendar
- 8:30 am: Trade Price Indices – Feb.1
- 9:45 am: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index – Mar. P
- 12:00 pm: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
Canadian Market Calendar
- No releases
Earnings and the Federal Reserve
For earnings highlights, please see today's WSJ Earnings Calendar.
For a list of upcoming speeches, congressional testimony, Federal Open Market Committee material, and statistical releases, please visit the What's Next page of The Federal Reserve Board website. Recently released Federal Reserve Board material, including market moving FOMC decisions and speeches by members, will be found on their What's New page.
1 U.S. Feb. import prices up 0.8% on oil
Thursday March 17, 2005 closing data
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Statistics for Thursday March 17, 2005
Note: Statistics are compiled based on our custom symbol universe of the most heavily traded stocks.
| Symbols in Up Swings | 175 |
|---|---|
| Symbols in Down Swings | 587 |
| Up/Down Swing Ratio | 0.29 : 1 |
| Up Bars | 25% |
| Down Bars | 42% |
| Inside Bars | 20% |
| Outside Bars | 8% |
| Close > 20EMA | 56% |
| Close > 50SMA | 45% |
| Close > 200SMA | 59% |
| 20EMA > 50SMA > 200SMA (trend up) | 37% |
| 20EMA < 50SMA < 200SMA (trend down) | 27% |
In yesterday’s Market Direction note we see that price had pulled back to a significant area of potential support. After a day of sideways trading, investors are no closer to knowing whether support will hold or not, but at least it has not failed.
SPY – S&P 500 ETF
Looking at the bigger picture here – price is still well above major support and with this latest pull back to the late Feb swing lows (ignore spike on SPY here), price has retreated to the 50% level of the range. Frequently markets will find support – lasting or not – at the 50% retracement. If buyers are not inclined to come in here, this weekly chart shows us the obvious next major target below.
There certainly is still reason to consider the long side here so we’ll have to stalk both long and short.
First up today – ETFs. Individual stocks will be posted in TrendVue Trader Talk this morning.
Long or Short
As noted in this morning’s notes, price is hovering at an area that should provide support – yet there is significant downside ahead if support folds. Therefore we should be stalking the recent consolidation over the past couple of days on either side of the market – keeping in mind that its also Quadruple Witching day – and the S&P 500 is being rebalanced – so markets may make exagerated moves which are not reflected in price by the close.
QQQQ – 3 Inside Up setup
SPY – also 3 in Up – you must check the underlying index first on all these ETFs to know what to ignore.
DIA – seemingly the weaker (last few days) of the three – chances are I’ll focus my trading on DIA / YM over the others if I need to open new swing trade shorts today.
Today's transcript.
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