Market Wrap (recording & summary)

What is responsible for Thursday’s relatively narrow range? That is, until the headline triggered a plunge to the longstanding 2466.50 objective. Anxiousness ahead of Friday morning’s Employment Situation report? While price action can become paralyzed ahead of the report, that doesn’t explain Thursday morning. Regardless, the session fluctuated in a narrowing range that couldn’t start trending either way.

Three prior sessions had reversed down from gapping up, so perhaps the problem was no overnight effort. But the Globex low did touch the bias-down signal, which held. Six of the prior seven sessions had done the same, more than enough conditioning for Pavlovian salivating that accelerates the usual move into an earlier window. Wednesday night’s dip hardly qualifies.

An important point to charting is spotting patterns. An equally important point is spotting deceptive patterns. The latter is easier, because valid patterns often resolve as quickly as they form. False patterns make sure that everyone is convinced. So, while the past week seems to have formed an Ascending Triangle, that was complete well before now.

Breaking higher Friday would be possible, but suspicious. Breaking lower would be likelier, even if also only so far for the day.

Details and other markets coverage are discussed in the post-market Wrap recording here.

Monitor overnight Globex trading in the chaRTroom here.