Friday stock market forecast

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

• Friday higher only if ES remains above its pivot, else lower.
• ES pivot 1824.75.  Holding above is bullish.
• Next week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias lower.
• YM futures trader: still long at 16,434 .

Recap

Huh - I figured as much.  On Wednesday Auntie Janet threw the market under the bus, sending the Dow down 100 points.  And on Thursday she backed it up and did it again, this time for 256 more points.  Janet Yellen, please do me a favor - shut up!  So with the Dow now on a five day losing streak, will it ever go higher?  Let's sift through the debris for any clues as to when the pain might end,

The technicals

The Dow:  The best thing that can be said for the Dow is that on Thursday it conducted a successful retest of last August's lows.  The resulting red candle is sitting right on the lower BB at 15,645.  Indicators remain oversold as we remain in a week-long descending RTC.  The stochastic is finally starting to flatten around for  bullish crossover but a reversal is still not a sure thing at this point.

The VIX:  On Thursday the VIX defied the technicals by jumping back p seven percent, right back to its upper BB.  So much for the bearish evening star/whatever.  The VIX is now back to year-long highs complete with extremely overbought indicators and a stochastic on the verge of a bearish crossover.  What is it with this chart?  Just what the heck does it take to send this index lower?  For the record, VVIX put in a big red bearish evening star but it looks like nothing can get this VIX lower lately.

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are higher at 12:39 AM EST with ES up 0.18%. It's now been six full days since ES last managed to close higher.  What the heck?  Is the world really coming to an end in 2016?  Thursday gave us a big ft red spinning top that tested its lower BB.  I had to back my SPX chart to the monthly level to find the last time we were here - it was exactly two years ago - February 2014.  If anyone has any doubt that the bull market is dead, you can forget it now.  Both the Dow and SPX have now traded outside their monthly rising RTCS's for two months running and that means the trend (going back to 2009) is over, to a 95% confidence.  I just don't get the talking heads on TV who claim otherwise.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot falls again from 1854.33 to 1824.75. That is finally enough to put ES above its new pivot so this indicator turns bullish.

Dollar index:   Last night's reversall candle wasn't enough to save th edollar and I was right to wait for confirmation becvause we didn't et it on Thursday with the buck off another 0.33%.  This time it was on a gap-dpwn doji star.  the last time we saw one of these, the dollar was higher the next day and we're now sufficiently oversold for me to think that that is a good possibility for Friday.

Euro:  The euro meanwhile continued partying like it's 1999 on Thursday as it ground higher back to 1.33200, 8its best close since last October 21st, remaining in a strong rising RTC.  The new overnight is taking something of a breather but it's too soon to call the euro lower just yet.

Transportation:  Last night I wrote that "the general impression is bearish" here and on Thursdya down we went, giving up 1.44% to cnfirm the inverted hammer with - yes, a real hammer.  That move left hte indicators all confused, and me too.  I have no idea whih track the trans will switch to on Friday.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    9      5       5           0       0.643    1433
February   4      1       3           1       0.833     462



     And the winner is...

Earlier this week I claimed that we were due for an up day this week.  Well looks like it's now or never.  The SPX Hi-Lo indicator hit 2.06 on Thursday, quite low enough for a reversal.  In addition, the futures are finally showing a decent advance in the overnight and also for a change, Janet Yellen will hopefully keep her trap shut for a day.  We also have a successful retest of the August lows in the Dow as well as a bunch of reversal candles on charts that are at extreme oversold levels.

Unfortunately, ES seems to be giving up its gains as I write and with the VIX  still near 30 snd Mr. Market in one of his states, it's just too risky for me to call Friday outright bullish so I'm just going to try another conditional call: if ES can manage to remain above its new pivot by mid-morning Friday, we'll close higher.  If it falls through the pivot though, we close lower.

That's all she wrote.  With another Monday holiday next week, see you again Monday night!

YM Futures Trader

Nothing new again here

Thursday stock market forecast

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

• Thursday lower.
• ES pivot 1854.33.  Holding below is bearish.
• Friday bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• YM futures trader: still long at 16,434 .

Recap

It was another crazy day on the Street.  The Dow was up triple digits in anticipation of Auntie Janet in Washington, and then it was all downhill from there, the Dow ending with a 100 point loss on the day.  After watching this charade on CNBC I'm sure Janet was shaking her head and asking herself  "Why did I take this job again?" as she played to an 80% empty room spending half her time listening to politicians who didn't even bother asking her any quesitons at all, instead using their time as an opportunity to grandstand their pet causes on national TV.

Periodically the camera would pan over to an audience of a motley array of sullen looking teenagers who appeared to be suffering from acute Nintendo withdrawal, all no doubt wondering what they were doing there too.  Perhaps it was their "Gimme more money" T-shirts someone gave them.  Oink oink.

I just called the day uncertain but it was clear that Mr. Market disapproved.  So with this noise out of the way, let's see how the charts have changed.

[Hey Google - fix your $%&#@ Blogspot spell checker!]

The technicals

The Dow:  The more Janet talked, the lower the market went.  Dammit, Janet!  You need to get in sync with reality here.  You can't seriously be entertaining ay more rate hikes this year, can you?  So anyway after two days of reversal candles, we just continued lower, this time with a fat incerted hammer.  Indicators moved a bit lowr but the stochastic is still not ready to show us a bullish crossover.  With essentially four big down days in a row now, it's starting to look like the market wants to test the January lows here.  Wednesday's action certainly canceled any bullish aspirations we may have entertained last night as the Dow gave up the 16K support line.

The VIX:  The strangess carried over to the VIX.  As I expected, it moved lower Wednesday but unusually on a day the rest of the market was down too.  And the resulting green hammer was a puzzler.  We remain highly overbought and the pattern is something of a bearish evening star and yet the market refuses to rally.  Go figure.

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are lower at 12:23 AM EST with ES down 0.46%. ES has been all over the map lately with a fat hammer Monday a doji star Tuesday and now an inverted hammer wednesday.  They all look like reversal candles - until the next day and then ES jsut keeps going lower.  January support is now jsut a distant memory, as is last August support.  And the lower BB ontinues to fall away.  But even atthat the indicators are not yet at extreme oversold levels.  And with the new overnight amazingly enough continuing lower again, there's no reveral in sight here at all.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot rises  from 1845.92 to 1854.33. Even without that, ES remains below its new pivot so this indicator simply continues bearish.

Dollar index:   On Wednesday, the dollar ignored Tuesday's hammer and jut kept falling, down another 0.16% in an inverted hammer to send all the idicators quite oversold.  We're now back to where we were last October.  And just like last night we have a reversa candle but once again with such a strong downtrend in place, tat requires confirmation.

Euro:  And also on Wednesday, the euro put in a dagger doji star ending virtually unchanged at 1.12895.  But that reversal sign is already being disconfirmed as the overnight continues marching higher despite indicators now highly overbought.  There has to be a top in here somewhere nearby, but it doesn't look like Thursday will be it.

Transportation:  After some bullish divergence and a bullish engulfing pattern on Tuesday, the trans gave it back with a tall inverted hammer at the top end of that action.  The loss was minor but with indicators now falling, the general impression is bearish.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    9      5       5           0       0.643    1433
February   3      1       3           1       0.800     206

     And the winner is...

I suppose it's possible we could go higher on Thursday.  The VIX certainly is suggesting that as a possibility and things are getting quite overextended to the downside.  And yet oil continues its slide lower, buyers are nowhere to be found and with Auntie Janet scheduled for an encore performance on Thursday, it's looking grim indeed.  So in the absence of any positive technical signs on the charts beyond the VIX (which doesn't even seem to be helping), I'm going to call Thursday lower and will be pleased to be proven wrong.  Meh.

YM Futures Trader

Nothing new again here.

Wednesday stock market forecast

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

• Wednesday uncertain.
• ES pivot 1845.92.  Holding below is bearish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• YM futures trader: still long at 16,434 .

Recap

After spending most of the day underwater, the Dow began a relentless post-lunch rally that nearly torpedoed my call for a lower close.  It was only some last-minute selling that saved the day for me.  And even then, the result was a classic doji star.  Tonight's another Night Owl Lite night so just skip to the bottom for the results.

The technicals

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are lower at 12:59 AM EST with ES down 0.46%.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot falls again from 1852.75 to 1845.92. That still leaves ES below its new pivot so this indicator just continues bearish.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    9      5       5           0       0.643    1433
February   3      1       2           1       0.800     206


     And the winner is...

We now have a bunch of charts stretched to fairly extreme levels.  In particular, the VIX hit its upper BB with a dark cloud cover on Tuesday and that's always a great reversal sign.   Add in dojis in the Dow and a big bullish divergence in the trans which gained 1.04% on a day the rest of the market fell and it's all starting to feel like a short-term bottom.  On the other hand, the futures have resumed their free-fall in the new overnight, possibly on noise related to European banks, or something to that effect.  Oil, for a change was actually higher on Tuesday.  But the kicker Wednesday is going to be Auntie Janet delivering a load of Feddage to Congress and who knows what she's going to say.  So all in all, this looks like a good time to simply call Wednesday uncertain.  I do believe we're setting up for at least one up-day before the week's out.  Whether it's Wednesday is still an open question.

YM Futures Trader

Nothing new again here.

Tuesday stock market forecast

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

• Tuesday lower.
• ES pivot 1852.75.  Holding below is bearish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• YM futures trader: still long at 16,434 .

Recap

Hmm - well that was interesting.  I made a conditional call last night saying that we could only close higher if ES could break above its pivot.  Well it spent a few hours bumping up against it until about 4 AM (presumably when the Europeans all woke up and said "Zut, alors!") and then fell off a cliff.  It was all downhill from there and we indeed closed lower.  That all made for some interesting chart-reading so let's get right to it.

The technicals

The Dow:  On Monday the Dow tanked right out the gate before a late-afternoon rally left it with a 178 point loss and a red hammer.  That's a reversal sign, though it would be a lot better one if the indicators were anywhere near oversold, which they're not.  Still, we nearly touched the lower BB on Monday at 15,732 so we're left with a vague possibility of a move higher on Tuesday but one which requires confirmation.

The VIX:  On Monday the VIX rang the gong, just like the pole and sledgehammer at the old county fairs.  It gapped up 11% on a tall doji star to just about touch its upper BB at 27.94 before ending at a still lofty 26.  That sent all the indicators scurrying higher towards overbought though we're not there yet.  But with 2/3 of a bearish evening star in place nad a ywaming gap below it's hard not to think there's some downside coming Tuesday.

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are lower at 12:30 AM EST with ES down 0.96%. ES had an awful day on Monday as it extneded a precipitous week-lomg decline with a very tall red spinning top that broke year-long support (January and last August at 1855).  It conducted a successful test of the lower BB at 1843 but the new overnight iscontinuing lower in non-trivial fashion as the lower BB jsut falls away.  Although indicators are now oversold, there's nothing bullish at all on this chart.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot falls from 1885.17 to 1852.75. That still leaves ES below its new pivot so this indicator continues bearish.

Dollar index:   On Friday the dollar took an unsuccessful stab at its 200 day MA.  Then on Monday it made a drmatic gap-up rush to vault over it right out the gate, only to spend the rest of the day  fading, falling right back through to end very nearly where it began and with a 0.49% loss to boot.  This makes the mother of all dark coud covers so with indicators still not even oversold and a 200 MA cross, I'd say the dollar looks lower Tuesday.

Euro:  After breaking above its 200 day MA last week, ES has sort of stalled in a congestion zone around 1.1185 with strong resistance at 1.1224..Monday retraced all of Friday's losses but was unable to break that eve.  The new overnight seems equally powerless.  And with overbought indicators and a fresh bearish stochastic corssover I'm inclined to think the euro goes lower on Tuesday.  Note that this conflilcts with my call for a lower dollar.  One of those calls is going to be wrong but I just call each chart as I see it.  We're living in funny times.

Transportation:  We also got a doji star out of the trans on Monday, which fell only 0.27%, a lot less than the Dow.  In fact the trans remain in a see-saw kind of uptrend that never manages to hit overbought.  Being now near the lower edge of that trend and with a big gap above, I'm sort of thinking that we could see a move higher here on Tuesday.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    9      5       5           0       0.643    1433
February   2      1       2           1       0.750     193 

Conditional calls count in the win/loss column but I do not add any market points for them.


     And the winner is...

The market has been building negative momentum for two days now and it looks like that has yet to run its course.  ES taking out its January support is a bad sign.  I'm expecting  perhaps some sort of washout on Tuesday as we're starting to get pretty short-term oversold here.  But pending that I'll jsut have to call Tuesday lower.

YM Futures Trader

Nothing new again here.

Monday stock market forecast

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

• Monday higher only if ES breaks above its new pivot, else lower.
• ES pivot 1885.17.  Holding below is bearish.
• Rest of week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• YM futures trader: still long at 16,434 .

Recap

With so much uncertainty in the charts last Thursday night, it wasn't at all clear which way the market would break on Friday.  Turns out some rather poor jobs numbers did the trick and the Dow dopped 212 points.  We now enter the second week of February with another Night Owl Lite.  I'm going to be busy watching the Big Game.  Of course I mean the Puppy Bowl.  Is there anything else going on tonight?  So I will simply skip the individual chart commentary (though I still look them over) and cut right to the conclusions.

The technicals

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are higher at 12:30 AM EST with ES up 0.45%.

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot dives from 1906.75 to 1885.17. Even that still leaves ES below its new pivot but only by a point.  So at the moment this indicator is mildly bearish, but that could change.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points
January    9      5       5           0       0.643    1433
February   2      1       2           0       0.667     193


     And the winner is...

For the last month, every time we've had a big down day, it's been followed by an up day.  And the futures certainly seem to be suggesting a move higher Monday right now.  But the VIX, Dow and trans all look technically bearish.  So I think the best way to resolve this conundrum, given the current proximity of ES to its new pivot is to make a conditional call: if ES can break above its new pivot by mid-morning Monday, we'll close higher.  If on the other hand it remains below the pivot, we close lower.

YM Futures Trader

Nothing new again here.