Look At This Pattern On The 30-Minute ES Chart

January 13, 2004
Chris Curran

The
March SP futures opened the week with a small gap to the upside after
Friday’s jobs data-related slide. After Friday’s downtrend day, an oscillation
day was to be expected, and that’s what we got for the first few hours as the
contract established the top end of its range at its Daily Pivot just under
1,124 and the bottom end at Friday’s close at 1,120. As the range tightened up
even more going into the lunchtime lull, the Daily Pivot did a good job of
containing several upside breakout attempts. The 2:00 hour finally brought in
some volume to take out the session high, and again to support the resulting
pullback attempt. Late buying surfaced again right at the cash close to push the
contract to its best levels of the day.

The March S&P 500 futures
closed Monday’s session with a gain of +8.25 points to make back most of
Friday’s losses, and finished in the top 1/2 of its daily range. Volume in the
ES was estimated at 636,000 contracts, which was behind Friday’s pace but above
the daily average. Looking at the daily chart, the contract posted an inside
reversal off of its lower trading channel trend line and 10-day MA support. On
an intraday basis, the 30-min chart closed at the reversal area of a bearish
Gartley pattern, giving an initial target down to MA support in the 1,124-23
area.