Pre-market update (updated 8am eastern):

  • European markets are trading 0.4% higher.
  • Asian markets traded 2.0% higher. 
  • US futures are trading mixed ahead of the opening bell. 

Economic reports due out (all times are eastern): GDP (8:30am), Jobless Claims (8:30am), Chicago (PMI), EIA Natural Gas Report (10:30am), Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Index (11am), Farm Prices (3pm)

Technical Outlook (SPX):

  • A massive and unexpected rally out of the market yesterday, that quickly puts in doubt the ability of the bears to push this market notably lower in the short-term. 
  • Despite the strong rally, volume remained lighter than average, and less than the volume from Tuesday. 
  • I’d still consider this to be a dead cat bounce until there is some kind of technical improvement. Right now, I am not seeing it at thsi point. 
  • If the bulls can hit 1521 and stay above it, i think the that this becomes a legitimate rally point for the bulls to continue pushing higher. 
  • On the previous channel from June through October last year, it was the third retest of the rising channel that finally broke, which is the same retest we are on right now in the SPX.
  • Both channels and the price action within are unbelievably similar in nature. 
  • I don’t expect the 50-day moving average which currently sits at 1480, to offer any significant support if tested.
  • VIX dropped back into the 14’s yesterday. 
  • If we see a break at 1480 today of the rising channel, the next logical support level for the market rests at 1465. 
  • We saw the SPX break 1495 which was key in my opinion for determining whether this was momentary weakness or a new leg down in the broader market. 
  • We haven’t seen a market pullback in excess of 4% since October/November time-frame. 
  • The channel that we are currently trading in looks very similar to the channel that we traded in last year from June through September. 

My Opinions & Trades:

Chart for SPX:

S and P 500 Market Analysis 2-28-13