A Little Improvement
Price patterns in S&P futures continue to improve, however, action is still on the slow side. Also, the up/down volume has been lagging for the last couple of days, which can be dangerous.
This morning, S&P futures were trading at 1514, down 110. Q2 GDP came in line to a touch better than expected for the markets at 5.3%. SPU has to show staying power above 1517 and not trade below 1511 to be in good shape.
The market needs to spend more of the first hour above, rather than below, 1512.50 to accelerate the buying. On the upside, the longer the market can stay above 1512.50, the more likely it will try for the 1517-1520 area. There is a major gap at 1521.50 to 1519.
Resistance above the gap comes in at 1524.50. 1524 is the four-and-a-half-month high settlement from July 14. On the downside, we’ve got key support at 1509.50, yesterday’s low at 1506.50, and 1503.50. Morning pivot is 1512.60. Yesterday’s close at 1515.20 was a five-week high.
NASDAQ settled at a five-week high at 3965 yesterday. Now, off 500 points at 3960 in a very uneventful overnight trade. In general, the market is showing very stable bias to the upside as we keep grinding out upward days.
If this is to continue, as we mentioned yesterday, Cisco
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PowerRating) will be one of the keys moving foward — as will essentially all of the five biggest caps – CSCO, Intel
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PowerRating), Oracle
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PowerRating), Microsoft
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PowerRating) and Sun Micro
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PowerRating). If MSFT can just “hang in there” and the other four continue to rally, this market looks as if the path of least resistance is to the upside.
Yesterday’s trade was in general rather bland; very little happened. One thing worth noting, however, is we have seen an increase in the open interest in the NDU for the last five sessions. For today, on the heels of a GDP, there does not seem to be anything on the economic front that would scare off potential buyers.
Also, today could be a milestone day for the NASDAQ Composite, as we are off only 0.4% for the year. Today we have support in a critical area between 3960 and 3948. We would almost treat this as a pivot zone.
Below this, we would be looking for a move down to the first support at 3920, then a test of yesterday’s low of 3897. If the market were to fail under 3900, we would look for the support found between 3880 and 3890 to be a good buying opportunity. If this failed, 3850 would be the first target, and in all likelihood, we would look for a move back down to 3820.
Any settlement below 3900 should be construed as a short-term negative for the market. On the upside, resistance is found between 3980 and 3990. Above this, 4000 obviously will be a psychological number. Locals will be looking to trigger buy stops there. But our first area above this for resistance is 4015.
If we get through 4015, we would expect a quick move to 4050. Anything above 4050 — especially on a closing basis — targets the previous recovering high of 4143.
The Dow continues to be in a sideways pattern. However, it’s worth noting that we gained 38 points yesterday in spite of the financials having another session of profit-taking. If we have a few more days of uneventful trading, this market may represent the best risk/reward for upside potential.