Mid-day Update

Trending up within yesterday’s range.

Overnight action was contained within yesterday’s late-afternoon bounce. Yesterday’s late-afternoon 2822.00 high was attacked during that window, but the window held — sort of like an “inside day.”

Rallying out of this morning’s 2818.50 open has extended through the noon hour to attack yesterday’s 2831.25 high (finally piercing it now). That’s no small feat, but it’s still contained entirely within yesterday’s range, so today is so far an inside day.

The significance of these characteristics to my templates is that rally’s sponsorship isn’t gaining traction. There are no reliable lasting effects, which would help to ensure extending higher. Which is in-line with today’s upleg being doomed to failure, having rallied from a gap down under yesterday afternoon’s highs.

Probing fresh highs during this afternoon’s bias environment has room up to 2836.00. No longer an inside day, but bearish if the bias environment were exited back under 2829.50-2831.25.

This morning’s 2813.75 bias objective has become “unfinished business below,” which requires being tested eventually. It would be the likely objective of any topping action today, especially if closing under 2818.50.

Overnight rally’s retracement approaching unchanged.

This morning’s doubly-renewed bias-up fulfilled its 2829.50 up to 2831.25. Exiting the bias environment above 2829.50 would have put into play 2836.00. But back under 2828.00 would trigger a pullback to at least 2821.00.

2828.00 broke lower to 2821.00 before the bias environment even came within view of lapsing. It began lapsing at the 2825.25 renewed bias-up target. The choppy noon hour bounced a little higher to 2827.00.

It’s been straight down from there. This afternoon’s 2820.50 bias-down signal triggered, and its 2812.00 bias-down target has been attacked to within 5 ticks. Now a reaction up is testing last week’s 2818.00 highs as resistance.

Back under 2815.75 would signal the decline has resumed. As I described before the open, it’s difficult to expend enough selling pressure from such a high open to probe back into negative territory, let alone to close negative. That makes this reversal unlikely to reverse the trend down. Unchanged (2808.00-2812.50) is natural support, and sellers will need reinforcements to avoid bouncing into the close.

Expiration distribution should be done.

Somehow, the market often finds a way to honor even its most contradictory commitments. The morning’s bearish WedEX influence kept the recovery from overnight lows from gaining traction back into positive territory. And the WedEX’s influencing lapsed as the bias environment exit rallied through overnight highs to 2808.75, isolating another timing window’s probe under Thursday’s lows.

The bullish Isolation seems to have been recharged with another failed attempt to break lower. The reward for having absorbed more sellers is still the recovery of last week’s 2818.00 highs. Not relentlessly, but with only temporary corrections that keep intact the ongoing series of higher highs and higher lows off this morning’s 2796.00 low.

Meanwhile, this morning’s 2806.50 bias objective is neutralized, and a very late bias-up has triggered to put into play a new objective at 2812.50. Back under 2803.75 would start to signal another detour underway.

Morning’s rally fulfills objective, in time for afternoon bearish influence.

Is this week’s WedEX influence bearish? We’ll soon see.

Holding the post-open test of this morning’s 2802.25 bias-down signal had put into play an offsetting test of its 2811.00 bias-up signal. Attacking it to within 3 ticks at this morning’s high neutralized the objective.

Friday morning bias signals tend to persist through the noon hour, which traded flat-to-lower. Its pullback held above the morning uptrend’s last relative low, so sellers didn’t gain traction for their effort.

But now it’s Friday afternoon. The bearish WedEX is in-play, and already 2803.50 has been touched. Of course, being the afternoon’s bias-down signal in a no-bias environment means 2803.50 should define the window’s lower-end. Which it is, so far, reacting up at least 2 points.

Lower lows should be contained above yesterday’s 2800.00-2802.00 lows to maintain the open’s Isolation setup. Probing much lower would suggest something more substantial coming.

Morning’s slide stops, but doesn’t reverse.

Despite having been probed by nearly 4 points, this morning’s 2804.00 bias-down target held through 10:15 to avoid renewing the bias-down signal. It held a retest through 10:30, too. Often that will define the bias environment’s lower-end, which it did again, bouncing back up to the 2811.00 bias-down signal.

The noon hour dipped back down to 2804.00. Perhaps an even deeper drop was underway — if not also triggering this afternoon’s bias-down and resuming the morning’s decline — but for Trump’s interest rate comment triggering a knee-jerk reaction. The reaction happened to be up, it might as well have been down. In fact, it was retraced entirely almost immediately. Regardless, it crowded out the organic move already underway.

Now this afternoon has triggered no-bias by holding this afternoon’s 2805.75 bias-down signal. There’s room back up to the 2813.25 bias-up signal, and 2811.00 is now being retested. Back under 2807.50 would start to signal the decline was resuming anyway.