Look To The Generals

The
S&P 500, after an early up until about 11:00 a.m., traded down
until
just before 2:00 p.m. The early move was accompanied by a negative divergence of
New York Stock Exchange ticks. The index then traded down to its 260-EMA on your
five-minute charts, and then staged an option-expiration rally until 3:30 p.m.,
before selling down into the close to just above its 260-day EMA.


The S&P 500 closed at
1491.72, and has yet to close above the 1495 retracement level.
The
1499.45 high was just below the down trendline on the S&P 500 weekly chart,
which has formed a classical symmetrical triangle and is bounded on the bottom
just below the 40-week moving average.


The New York Composite has
broken upside resistance above 660, so let’s see if the Generals are going to
break the S&P 500 out to the upside, or take it south. 


It will take a significant
volume pickup to give investors some confidence.


The SOX closed Friday
+2.1%, capping a big week for the semis at +14.9%. The financials, after their
recent run, were slightly negative on the week and had gotten ahead of
themselves. 


Friday was another
light-volume day with negative breadth, and institutional blocks of only
16,504. 
As is often the
case, most of the option-related program volatility took place prior to Friday.


Tuesday is FOMC day and the
current rally has discounted it as a non-event.
You
should look for opportunities on your intraday charts today, as there are not
many good continuation setups on the daily charts.


With the S&P 500 at
both retracement and weekly resistance, we look for the Generals to give us
direction.














face=”arial, helvetica”>(September Futures)


Fair
Value


size=2>Buy


size=2>Sell


6.55


7.75


5.45


Pattern
Setups


Best Buy
(
BBY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Network Appliance
(
NTAP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Sanmina
(
SANM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Verisign 
(
VRSN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Gemstar
(
GMST |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
and Micron Technology
(
MU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
(above Thursday’s high).


Also Corning
(
GLW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, JDS
Uniphase
(
JDSU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, Mercury Interactive
(
MERQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, and SanDisk
(
SNDK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
.


On the short side, if we get a
surprise to the downside, I’d stay with the Qs
(
QQQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
.


Have a good day.


 



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