Today’s Trading Plan: A Busy Slate of Earnings Ahead

Technical Outlook:

• SPX managed to climb higher on Friday, on little to no volume. 
• SPY volume came in less than the day prior, and continues to hover at its weakest levels of the year. 
• Last week marked the lowest SPY volume of the year. 
• Tons of earnings reports this week and next. This week will see weakness creep back in to the market if big names disappoint. 
• Consolidation over the last 7 days continues – a push higher today, would break price out of this near-two week holding pattern. 
• VIX, despite Thursday’s bounce was rejected at the key 13 price level and saw a hard sell-off. 
• Very possible that VIX manages to push below 12 and into the 11’s. 
• The market is climbing the wall of worry, and despite what we might think or the overall economy, central banks are providing accommodating policy which will make a major sell-off difficult, particularly when the Fed seems unwilling to raise interest rates any time soon. 
• With that said, Fed will be releasing its FOMC Statement at 2pm eastern on Wednesday. No press conference is scheduled. 
• 30-minute chart of SPX shows indecision and back-and-forth rallies over the past few days.  
• SPX is up for a fourth straight week. Last five times it has gone on to be up a fifth straight week as well. 
• SPX reclaimed the 5-day moving average.
• Watch 2155 on SPX – a break of this price level could lead to further selling today. 
• So far the bulls have only been willing to work off overbought conditions through time and not through a pullback. Most clearly seen over the last two years that the market consolidated. 
• Oil continues to weaken and looks to be the case again today. This could be a factor in what eventually ends the bull rally in equities if the crude slide continues. 
• At this point, and with the election ahead, I’d expect the market to keep rallying higher. I don’t expect there to be a rate hike between now and the election. To do so would impact the market and thereby the election. I don’t think the Fed wants that, particularly since Trump has indicated that he would replace Yellen. 
• Market is assuming that rate hikes are pretty much off the table for all of 2016. 

My Trades:

• Did not close out any swing-trades on Friday. 
• Added one new position to the portfolio on Friday. 
• May add 1-2 new swing-trades to the portfolio today. 
• Will be closing a number of positions out this week ahead of their earnings report. 
• Will consider hedging the portfolio as well with a short position. 
• Currently 60% Long / 50% Cash
• Join me each day for all my real-time trades and alerts in the SharePlanner Splash Zone

Chart for SPX: