Post-open Review

Or, has it only been delayed?

Last night’s bounce to 2905.00 was reversed back to unchanged at 2899.25 before the open. And that was probed momentarily down to 2897.50.

But retracing doesn’t equate to reversing.

Firming into the 2901.75 opening print also touched this morning’s 2901.50 bias-up signal, and the test was on. Touching would require either triggering it to put in-play its bias-up target, or holding it to put in-play an offsetting test of its bias-down signal.

Invoking the grace period resolved up, quickly compensating for the delay. Intraday tests of the gap back to yesterday’s 2903.25 open and the 2906.25 “new Globex trend extreme” are now done. Their likely higher objective at 2909.00 is being met, too.

I’m not ruling out a reversal into negative territory. Probably not while RSIs remain overbought at the most recent high. And probably not if already reversing down into noon. New highs can also become much, much higher new highs, so I’m definitely not selling before a signal triggers.

Trending down from a gap up.

The 2906.25 bias-up target was touched before the open. It was too long before the open to be considered as met. So, failing to hold above the 2900.00 bias-up signal only puts into play an offsetting test of the 2892.25 bias-down signal.

An offsetting test of the 2886.25 bias-down target is not in-play. But not holding the 2892.25 bias-down signal’s test could extend lower anyway — probably to 2884.50.

Meanwhile, buyers aren’t marginalized. This is a late no-bias, since the bias-up signal was touched within 3 minutes of 10:15 invoke the grace period, and then broken through 10:30.

Even then, that was the bias-up signal’s first post-open touch — I’m always suspicious of late efforts. Overnight lows were just probed by 3 ticks down to 2896.75, which helps to confirm the downside. But back above 2901.50 could take a much bigger detour up, first.

Pre-open surge finds reinforcements.

The 2892.25 renewed bias-up signal and potentially 2900.00 probably seemed pretty far removed from the overnight ranging around 2883.00, already up 6 points from Friday’s close. (Their initial typo — calco? — 2992.25 and 3000.00 didn’t seem much further away.)

But a pre-open surge 90 minutes before the open was already testing 2889.00. And not reacting down early would be only likelier to extend sharply higher. The first hour’s near-relentless trending touched 2897.00.

A pullback is now testing 2892.25 as support. Extending any lower would threaten fresh post-open lows under 2887.00. Otherwise, back above 2895.25 would start targeting new highs up to 2900.00.

Target met, not renewed, but that didn’t matter.

Recovering the 2866.00 area through the open at 9:45 — or not — would have offered early assurance of also triggering the 2863.00 bias-up signal at 10:15. It was still being tested, so the early indication was moot.

But just testing and not rejecting it kept alive potential that its recovery was only being delayed by anxiousness ahead of Fed Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole remarks. Which it was. The knee-jerk reaction to his remarks spiked up to test the 2868.50 bias-up target.

Its reaction down to 2865.00 easily triggered bias-up, but didn’t recover above 2868.50 in time to renew the bias-up signal. It’s still a bias-up environment, and now another surge is attacking Tuesday’s 2874.00 high. RSIs are simultaneously overbought.

The usual bullish behavior of a bias-up target already met at 10:15 is to hover there, or back-and-fill through the balance of the bias environment. Probing higher can be premature, but the next significant higher objective would essentially be 2883.00. Regardless, I wouldn’t fade strength without some sort of distributive pattern forming first.

No new sellers.

[CORRECTION: First Trade’s post referenced Wednesday afternoon’s bias parameters and not this mornings. The bias parameter post is always the legitimate source.]

Not extending down out of the open would make a morning decline unlikely. And a pre-open dip had bottomed at this morning’s 2858.50 bias-down signal. Which wasn’t touched post-open, so only triggering no-bias doesn’t officially put into play an offsetting test of its 2868.50 bias-up signal.

But 2858.50 was touched within 3 minutes of the open. Which is close enough to plan for the market behaving as if the intraday crowd participated in the failed effort to break under it — at least, until disproved. In fact, 2868.50 is being tested now, including its room for noise up to 2869.50.

It’s too late to exceed 2868.50 through 10:30, which would have invalidated the no-bias signal. So, this test of 2868.50 should define the window’s upper-end. Probing above it anyway would be “no-bias trending” that requires being retraced.