Friday uncertain

The Hoot 
Actionable ideas for the busy trader delivered daily right up front

• Friday uncertain.
  
• ES pivot 1859.08 - switching to "M" contract.  Holding above is bullish.
• Next week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• ES Fantasy Trader standing aside.

Recap

So Tuesday night I called the market higher and it went lower.  Then last night I called it lower, so naturally it went higher.  Arrgh!  I hate getting whipsawed like that.  Oh well - one can't dwell on such things.  Let's see if we can at least get it right for the end of the week.

The technicals (daily)

The Dow: On Thursday the Dow retraced almost all of the losses from Wednesday which retraced all of the gains from Tuesday.  Up down up, who know where this one is going.  I'm surprised the VIX isn't higher.  And speaking of ...

The VIX:  The VIX can't figure out what it's doing either.  After Wednesday's bullish harami, Thursday gave us a bearish engulfing candle that once again cut back under the 200 day MA.  We're 7 for 9 crossing the MA now.  So this chart too makes no sense to me.

Market index futures: Tonight with futures expirations looming we switch to the "M" contracts.  The futures are mixed at 12:46 AM EDT with ES down by just one tick but YM up 0.02%.  The entire overnight so far has been basically flat.  There's a big tug-o-war going on between the bulls and bears and no indication yet of a winner.  If I had to guess, I'd say Friday would go lower just because Thursday was higher - not exactly a very profound sort of analysis.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the pivot rises from 1853.92  to 1859.08.  We remain above the new pivot, so this one is bullish.

Dollar index: On Thursday the dollar extended its big run-up from Wednesday with a 0.27% gap up doji to form 2/3 of an evening star.  But we need confirmation of this pattern on Friday..

Euro: And of course the euro extended its losses on Thursday, finally falling out of its long-running rising RTC for a bearish setup.  Indicators have just gone oversold but there's no good sign of a move higher here at the moment.

Transportation: In a bit of bearish divergence, the trans dropped on Thursday as the Dow rose, giving us a dragonfly doji that sent the  stochastic bending around to almost make a bearish crossover.  But nothing definite here either.


Accuracy (daily calls):

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    5      10      6           0       0.333     64
February   5       2      2           1       0.750    107
March      9       3      2           0       0.750    265

     And the winner is...

It is rare that I see the charts as opaque as they are tonight.  I don't know if it's the Fed, or China, or Putinoia but Mr. Market just doesn't seem to know which way he wants to go.  And neither do I.  Accordingly, I can only call Friday uncertain.  >shrug<  Have a great weekend and see you again Sunday night.

ES Fantasy Trader

Portfolio stats:  the account remains at $103,000 after the first trade of 2014.  We are now 1 for 1 total, 1 for 1 long, 0 for 0 short.  Tonight we stand aside.