E-Mini S&P

There is no energy whatsoever driving the rallies, only sporadic short covering when volume is especially thin. That said, yesterday's feeble waft exceeded the 'internal' peak at 2081.75 that I'd mentioned earlier, making the weakness that has ensued corrective. Since the rally surpassed the peak by only 1.00 point, it will likely be misread by many traders as a double top. Not by us, however -- it is legitimately impulsive -- and that's why I'll recommend using a buy signal like the one shown to get long. With implied entry risk of about 11 points, however, I'd suggest using charts of 5-minute degree or less, 'camouflage' style, to generate the signal when it is tripped on the daily chart. Keep in mind that the potential here is to as high as 2174.25.  If you're skittish about using camouflage, you may have another opportunity to enter 'mechanically' after p=2102.50 has been decisively exceeded and revisited on a pullback.

Bulls acted almost as gutless yesterday as we've come to expect from short-covering bears, pushing the futures 40 points higher while somehow failing to get past  a middling internal peak at 2081.75 recorded on March 30 (see inset). Buyers may succeed at it today, and then go on to achieve new record highs, but the fact that they were not able to hurdle the peak on the first try suggests that any rally in the offing is not destined for greatness.   As before, they'll need to push this gas-bag decisively past the midpoint pivot (2102.50) to imply there's sufficient wattage to get to its 'D' sibling, 2174.25.  Anything above the lower number will invite not only our diligent scrutiny, but our skepticism as well.

A trader's head could spin trying to make sense of Friday's fleeting plunge. Dismal payroll data was released on a holiday when most markets were closed, but that evidently didn't stop a privileged few institutional scumballs from unloading index futures two days ahead of the crowd. Electronic trading went on for about 45 minutes after news was released that America's on-again, off-again economic recovery had generated a paltry 126,000 jobs in March -- the fewest since 2013. S&P futures plunged 1% in the 45 minutes that traders were allotted to get a jump start on the herd. Ordinarily, the dirtballs' goal would be to exhaust supply on bad news by dropping their bids to levels that would be bargains even if the world were about to end. This time, however, it seemed there was unfinished business at the bell -- i.e., more selling to do in order to fully discount the awfulness of the payroll news. Whatever the case, I'd suggest using the stair-step targets shown in the chart to gauge the urgency of selling Sunday night. As always, even a small overshoot of a 'D' target would imply more downside to the next. Keep in mind that bad news is no longer necessarily good news, since most observers still (wrongly) expect the Fed to tighten no matter how bad the economy gets. Fed-watchers -- mindless sheep to a man -- will have their hands full trying to figure out which way Fed blather is about to zig or zag in order to manage our expectations. Rather than go dizzy trying to figure it all out, simply use the targets I've provided. It will also be helpful if you tune out the headlines and the benighted analysis of economists and other bozos who shill for the Fed. They know nothing,

Even with a flying leap into the bowels of hell Tuesday night, the futures still somehow failed to reach the 2020.25 target shown yesterday. Instead, bears squandered the opportunity and spent the day coffee-housing with their erstwhile nemeses, the bulls. The result was a day of tedium that left a still-negative bottom line.  The target remains valid; moreover, we should expect it to be hit, and to provide a tradable bounce, as precisely as the midpoint pivot at 2040.50 did Tuesday mid-morning. Night owls looking to board the southbound train should use the downtrending abc pattern begun from 2059.00 yesterday at 9:30 a.m. It is easily visible on the 15-minute chart and -- beware! -- has already stopped out shorts once, at 4:15 p.m.  If you prefer the easy-but-riskier mechanical short following a breakdown beneath p= 2040.50, the stop-loss would need to be at 2047.25.

Index futures were getting hammered unusually hard late Tuesday night, although there were no headlines at the major news outlets to account for it. Those doing the manipulating stopped just shy of breaching any key lows on the 180-minute chart (see inset). Instead, DaBoyz used those lows to generate a bounce that seems doomed to fail once shares have been unloaded into what appears to be a fake rally. Minimum downside thereafter would be to the 2025.75 Hidden Pivot support shown, although 2008.00 is possible if the pivot gives way easily. If 2008.00 fails as well, something more significant than the news headline of the hour is troubling traders. Q1 earnings reports, perhaps? ______ UPDATE (9:41 a.m. EDT): The futures swooned more than 50 points overnight, reaching 2060.75 on the rally I'd assumed to be a fake. I still think it's a fake, notwithstanding the freakish strength of the bounce. A gratuitous swing of this magnitude in the absence of headline news is most unusual, since DaBoyz tend to move the markets overnight only when news with obvious bullish or bearish implications crosses the tape. I'd be interested in hearing from subscribers on this.

Yesterday’s seemingly impressive rally was little more than bluster from a Hidden Pivot perspective. I’d stipulated that the futures exceed an ‘external’ peak at 2089.25 before we get excited, but the peak of the rally fell 7.50 points shy. Buyers couldn’t conquer it today, but the mere fact of having taken two days to generate a new bullish impulse leg on the hourly chart would still be reason to suspect that they don’t have what it takes to produce a sustained move. This vehicle was a bull trade at the bell nonetheless, based on the dubious, ‘bastardized’ impulse leg shown. Night owls should wait for a second or even third point ‘C’ low to develop before jumping aboard, since it may require more than a few hours of buyer’s remorse to get the futures in the right mood for a follow-through to Monday’s hysteria.

I don't usually tout hunches, but I'm given to imagine there is one last hurrah left in the aging bull. Before this can happen, however, I would expect the broad averages to breach their mid-March lows in order to get a running start at new record highs.  One reason I think this will prove so is that I can scarcely imagine the biggest bull market of them all ending with something so visually anticlimactic as the ostensible topping pattern shown. Still, it takes imagination to believe that stocks will be making new record highs in April, when corporate earnings reports for Q1 are due to be released. Big companies that were hit hard by the strong dollar in Q4 of 2014 would have taken an even bigger hit in Q1 2015, since the dollar has rallied sharply since then. Under the circumstances, we might look for weakness in the coming weeks that pushes stocks lower, but without collapsing them.  More immediately, the corrective rally begun on Thursday looked bound for the 2063.50 target shown, albeit with enough difficulty to raise doubts about whether the target will be reached at all. Regardless, Sunday night-owls seeking to catch a piece of the implied ride north should seek opportunity on charts of 5-minute degree or less, since there is too much implied risk in trusting  larger patterns. If you'd rather try to short into whatever strength surfaces Sunday night or Monday morning, I'd suggest taking the first downtrending ABC pattern on a chart of two-minute degree or less. _______ UPDATE (9:44 a.m. EDT): For whatever reason, stock are up today. My guess is that Wall Street likes the impending deal with Iran, since a nuclear race in the Middle East will be good for companies that sell centrifuges and reactors. Anyway, stocks are

The futures are up the equivalent of about 70 Dow points late Thursday night, having pushed past a 2053.25 target that I'd flagged in the chat room intraday. It took about 90 minutes of head-butting for buyers to accomplish this, but the payoff could come in the form of a rally Friday to 2069.00 or higher. That’s a Hidden Pivot resistance, and traders should consider its attainment an odds-on bet if this vehicle pushes past the 2057.75 midpoint pivot.  Night owls can try a mechanical entry after the futures have traded 2059.75 or higher. A pullback to 2057.75 could be bought ‘mechanically’ with a stop-loss at 2054.00. If you use the 'camouflage' technique instead, you can step up the size. ______ UPDATE (9:19 a.m.): The futures stalled exactly at the 2057.75 midpoint, so there was no trade.

I have mixed thoughts about what the stock market might do over the next 3-5 weeks, and in order to remain coldly objective, I'll put the emphasis for now on technical indicators. First, however, and for the record, let me air my gut feeling that a rally to marginal new record highs will put a final top on the bull market begun exactly six years ago. The rally could start now or in late April, but probably not in-between, since Q1 earnings announcements coming in April could get nasty. More immediately, the futures will have a chance to reverse yesterday's sharp decline from 2042.75, a Hidden Pivot support associated with the steepest segments of Wednesday's selloff (20-minute, A=2084.50 at 11:20 a.m.; B= 2060.25).  As long as the bounce comes from above 2037.25, we can use the large pattern shown to project a target for the next rally.  Alternatively, the selloff would wreak heavy technical damage on the daily chart if it continues over the next day or two, exceeding 2029.00 to the downside without an intervening rally lasting more than a day. _______ UPDATE (3:10 a.m. EDT): The markets have caught a whiff of fear from the Middle East, sending gold moderately higher and pushing this vehicle down to within 1.50 points of the 2042.75 target. The support is too fragile to take much punishment, and if it gives way we should brace for more slippage to 2019.25 (20-min, A= 2089.25 on 3/25 at 9:40 a.m.; B= 2052.25 on 3?25 at 4:20 p.m.; CC= 2056.25). A stall or bounce at the 2037.75 midpoint pivot would confirm that target.