25 Sept Indexes Prepping for a breakout

Discussion in 'Trading' started by tradingpoints, Sep 25, 2008.

  1. The indexes registered the narrowest trading range in the last seven days on Wednesday NR7. In addition, the Nasdaq 100 $NDX had an inside day, as the index has been oscillating between 1652 and 1691 for the past few days. This index has corrected 78.6% of its advance from last week’s 18 Sept spike low at 1652. This morning’s Globex session has the index trading above Wednesday’s high, which is the first indication that if and when the indexes do break out from this recent consolidation that it should be a bullish resolution.

    The daily price action for the past three days on the S&P has been a reaction from the 1291 spike high. Currently the S&P has corrected just slightly more than 61.8% of the advance from the 1136.50 futures low to the 19 Sept 1291.25 high. A weekly close above 1224.50 signals the end of the recent correction and indicates a high probability that a mutli-week rally should ensue. The rally may be choppy, akin to the Mar-May 2008 rally but a rally nonetheless. We are not there yet. There are many fundamental crosscurrents obviously and this morning the durable goods report, weekly jobless claims and new home sales should shape the immediate technical picture.

    The S&P Index has had a series of lower lows and lower highs since the S&P 1291 spike high on 19 Sept. Posted a chart last night in the Fibonacci levels area showing this hourly decline. Prices actually need to rally above 1211 on an hourly close just to break the bearish symmetry on the S&P hourly charts. So there is still plenty of room to rally and stay within the immediate hourly downtrend. Until prices exhibit a change in pattern on the 15 min or hourly charts, - a higher hourly high and a higher hourly low reaction, the bears dominate these timeframes. Other than the daily chart itself, bears control the weekly, hourly and 15 minute timeframes. The weekly pivot stands at 1224.50.

    The NR7 signal indicates that should prices take out the Wednesday’ s high or low that prices should trend in the direction of the breakout for the remainder of the day. Complications to a bullish resolution is the weakness in the banking $BKX and broker/dealer index $XBD. These two indexes registered low range close and low continuation signals yesterday on their weak closes. So while are many looking for a bullish run for the roses while it seems an equal number are focusing on a crash scenario, maybe the path to maximum frustration is just more choppiness.

    The S&P daily pivot is at 1194.50 on the Dec futures, today is the 1st day in the past three that prices have been able to trade above the pivot.