Thursday uncertain

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

• Thursday uncertain.
• ES pivot 2094.75.  Holding above is bullish.
• Friday bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• Single stock trader: VZ still not a swing buy here.

Recap

After two entire days of trading, the Dow on Wednesday closed within all of three points of where it opened on Tuesday as this crazy choppiness just goes on and on.  Maybe Thursday will bring us a decisive move one way or the other.  Anything's better than this.

The technicals

The Dow:  On Wednesday the Dow retraced all of Tuesday's losses plus a bit more.  That sort of qualifies for a bullish engulfing pattern.  What's not in doubt is the stochastic which formed a clear bullish crossover.  There's not much else to go on here so I guess the takeaway from that is positive.

The VIX:  After looking like it was getting ready for a reversal on Tuesday the VIX just fell right back to support around 12.66 on Wednesday.  That sent all the indicators lower before ever hitting overbought and formed a bearish stochastic crossover.  We remain in a descending RTC so there might be some more downside here, but with support nearby, it's probably limited.

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are only modestly  lower at 12:53 AM EDT with ES down 0.07%.  After a gravestone doji on Tuesday ES followed up with a hanging man on Wednesday that bumped up against resistance at 2100 but was unable to move beyond that.  And with indicators nearly overbought it's not clear that there's enough gas left in the ES tank for power on any further on Thursday.  It's certainly not showing much enthusiasm in the overnight so far.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot ticks up from 2094.50 to 2094.75. But ES remains above the new pivot so this indicator remains bullish.

Dollar index:  After two dojis in a row I punted on the dollar last night.  Turns out it went down, all of 0.07% on Wednesday.  There's just no calling this sort of Brownian motion activity.  Thursday continues to remain a mystery.

Euro:  Similarly, the euro closed just about where it began on Wednesday making it two dojis in a row.  With no resolution.  But now we've got a bearish stochastic crossover and with overbought indicators it looks to me like the next move is likely lower.

Transportation:  Last night I noted a hanging man in the trans but added that "this definitely needs confirmation.".  And good thing too because it was disconfirmed in a big way on Wednesday with the trans up over half a percent to touch their upper BB.  With indicators now overbought, this is another reversal warning but sorry to sound like a broken record - this also requires confirmation.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    8      6       4           1       0.563    627
February   6      4       5           3       0.692    183
March      7      6       5           4       0.647    976 
April      2      6       3           0       0.250    -80

     And the winner is...

The charts remain mired between overbought and oversold with little in the way of good candlestick guidance to base a forecast on.  Accordingly I'm afraid I have no choice but to once again call Thursday uncertain.

Single Stock Trader

After a tall hammer on Tuesday VZ took a nice little pop on Wednesday with a small spinning top.  That makes a move from the lower to the upper BB in just two days.  At this point if anything it looks lower for Thursday.  In any case I still can't get on board, swing trade-wise.