What’s Up, What’s Down: Mixed Signals Confound the Stock Index Futures Sector
Comments for Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Looking Ahead to Tuesday by Reflecting Back on Monday’s Price Action
INDICES:
FOMC Meeting begins today: Yesterday we saw lower to sharply lower closes ahead of the FOMC meeting for the cash and Dow futures along with the S&P’s and Nasdaq. I now have sell signals for the Dow and S&P’s while close to one for the Nasdaq. There is a hitch however. All are in or at good support areas and forming even larger possible tops. Also the long term trend is still up. Therefore, you can act on these signals or wait for possibly even larger ones to feel more comfortable taking short positions. There’s no way of knowing which is the smarter decision to take until after the fact.
METALS:
Lower to sharply closes yesterday for gold, platinum, copper and silver. Copper is still in an uptrend but forming a possible top at this time while in a strong support area but also unable to hold the 22500 area (July). Gold settled lower making its lowest low and close since the middle of May also breaking out of a bear flag to the downside. Silver finally gave me a sell signal also with its lowest low and close since the middle of May and ending up below the all important 14000 area (Sept). Platinum settled sharply lower breaking down out of a bear pennant with 11500 and below the next support area while now close to a sell signal. I still maintain my Buy Signal for Copper and Sell Signals for Silver and Gold.
See the balance of my morning comments, including the Metals, Softs, Energies and Grains, at my website. For my complete coverage, visit my commentary page at www.markethead.com.
Rick Alexander has been a broker and analyst in the futures business for over thirty years. He is a Vice-President for Sales and Trading at the Zaner Group (www.zaner.com) a Chicago-based futures brokerage firm. If you would like a free booklet explaining the charts mentioned above, email Rick at ralexander@zaner.com.