Friday stock market forecast

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

• Friday uncertain.
• ES pivot 2273.25  Holding below is bearish..
• Next week bias uncertain technically.
• Monthly outlook: bias higher.
• YM futures trader: no trade tonight.

Recap

After an initial drop right out the gate on Thursday, it was looking bad for my call for a lower close as the Dow began marching back into positive territory.  But a late-morning sell off quickly put the kabosh on that.  The Dow made a few more half-hearted attempts to get back to even but by the bell it was still down, albeit by only six points  There were some nice day trading opportunities but for swing trading - not so much.  In any case we now move on to Friday as we wrap up the first week of the dreary month of February.


The technicals

The VIX:  Last night in looking at the VIX I decided that "it's hard to claim that there's more downside to come.". And sure enough, after falling for two days the VIX rose a percent on Thursday..  But that came on a strange dark cloud cover type hanging man.  And the stochastic is now narrowing in for a bearish crossover before the indicators even reach overbought.  That leaves tonight's picture a bit on the vague side.

Market index futures: Tonight, all three futures are lower at 12:29 AM EST with ES down 0.14%. 

ES daily pivot: Tonight the ES daily pivot rises again from 2275.92 to 2273.25.   That leaves ES below its new pivot so this indicator continues bearish.

Accuracy: 

Month    right  wrong  no call  conditional  batting   Dow
                                             average  points

January   10      2       7           1       0.846    595
February   2      0       0           0       1.000    279

     And the winner is...

The market seems to have returned to its early January pattern of small change days marked by reversal candles that don't reverse.  I'm not getting a great read on the charts tonight.  I think we're setting up for another leg higher soon but we're not quite there yet.  Because I don't see a change in these near-doji days at the moment, I've just going to call Friday uncertain, even though the bias continues more or less negative.

That's all she wrote.  See you again Sunday night!

YM Futures Trader

No trade tonight.