Why 10AM Today Is Important
On Tuesday, upbeat
reading from the Retail Sales and NY Empire State Index reports
quickly gave way to a gap and trap open in the S&P 500 futures as market players
became nervous ahead of the “Mr. Greenspan Goes to Capitol Hill” show. The Fed
Chairman told a House Committee that interest rates would remain low and there
was room for actually more cuts. He also said that he saw no signs of deflation,
but if he did, he’d sure as heck fight it! (Place your interpretation here).Â
Bonds went into a freefall on his remarks, with
the 10-year yield climbing to a 2 1/2 month high. The pressure spilled over
into the September S&P 500 futures (SPU and ESU) as Merrill Lynch, Morgan
Stanley, and First Chicago were good sellers throughout the session. Going into
the last hour, the contract reversed off buy-side divergence (see chart) as
positions were squared up ahead of tech bellwether Intel’s
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) earnings
report, and closed down just -1.50.
On Wednesday morning at 8:30 am ET, we have the
releases of the Consumer Price Index and Business Inventories with consensus
expectations of 0.2% for both. Wednesday is also Day 2 of “Greenspeak” as this
time, the Fed Chairman goes to knock the socks off (figuratively speaking) the
Senate Banking Committee. Once again, the notes from his speech will hit the
newswires at 10 am ET, so treat it like any economic report and be flat ahead of
the release.Â
I’m not sure which is funnier, trying to figure
out what that man is saying, or the dumbfounded looks on the faces of the
Congressmen listening to him! With INTC’s earnings release, I would expect a
gap up at the open, but be cautious of a “sell the news” scenario, especially
with the run-up ahead of the report. In my next column, I’ll go over a couple of
rules of thumb to watch for with regards to opening gaps.
Daily Pivots
for 7-16-03
| Symbol | Pivot | Â Â Â Â Â R1 | R2 | R3 | S1 | S2 | S3 |
| COMP | 1755.72 | 1769.34 | 1785.40 | 1799.02 | 1739.66 | 1726.04 | 1709.98 |
| INDU | 9152.76 | 9214.22 | 9299.47 | 9360.93 | 9067.51 | 9006.05 | 8920.80 |
| NDX | 1297.08 | 1308.61 | 1322.62 | 1334.15 | 1283.07 | 1271.54 | 1257.53 |
| SPX | 1002.23 | 1007.80 | 1015.17 | 1020.74 | 994.86 | 989.29 | 981.92 |
| ESU | 1002.33 | 1009.67 | 1018.33 | 1025.67 | 993.67 | 986.33 | 977.67 |
| SPU | 1002.03 | 1008.87 | 1016.83 | 1023.67 | 994.07 | 987.23 | 979.27 |
| NDU | 1299.67 | 1312.33 | 1326.67 | 1339.33 | 1285.33 | 1272.67 | 1258.33 |
| NQU | 1299.50 | 1312.50 | 1327.00 | 1340.00 | 1285.00 | 1272.00 | 1257.50 |
| BKX | 908.79 | 915.45 | 924.32 | 930.98 | 899.92 | 893.26 | 884.39 |
| SOX | 402.69 | 407.98 | 414.08 | 419.37 | 396.59 | 391.30 | 385.20 |
| QQQ | 32.28 | 32.62 | 32.99 | 33.33 | 31.91 | 31.57 | 31.20 |
| SPY | 100.64 | 101.33 | 102.15 | 102.84 | 99.82 | 99.13 | 98.31 |
Good luck with your trading on Wednesday!
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