These 7 Stocks Will Be In The News Today

October 21, 2003
Chris Curran

The December S&P 500
futures (SPZ and ESZ) opened Monday’s session with a +2.00 point gap
to the upside after a slew of positive earnings reports. Merrill Lynch was a
good seller off the open to quickly close the opening gap. The contract got
some buying up to the Daily Pivot at 1,041.25 ahead of the 10 am Leading
Indicators report, and saw a muted response after the number came in
weaker-than-expected. However, after failing to break the Daily Pivot after 3
tries, the sellers took over and sent the futures down for a test of Friday’s
session low at 1,034.75.

Volume tapered off dramatically after the first
90 minutes as the contract clawed its way back up to the unchanged mark, where
it hovered for the next 4 hours. Taking its cue from the bond market close, the
S&P futures managed to draw some buying interest in the final hour and break its
Daily Pivot to post a new session high.

The December S&P 500 futures closed Monday’s
session with a gain of +7.50 points and finished just off the high of its daily
range. Volume in the ES was estimated at 549,000 contracts, which was behind
Friday’s pace, and below the daily average. On a daily basis, the contract
managed to close back above its 10-day MA after reversing off the the September
reaction high, and has formed a bull flag. The contract broke short on the
daily 3-Line Break chart, and needs to close back above 1,049.25 to reverse
long. On an intraday basis, the 13-min chart is coming up into the 2nd reversal
area on a bearish Butterfly pattern at 1,046.50 (see chart).

In tomorrow’s column, I’m going to go over some
of my personal thoughts regarding trading slumps and how to deal with
them. There are two types of traders: those who have experienced a trading
slump, and those who will have one.