Market Wrap (recording & summary)

Did Thursday thread the needle? Gapping up was the only path higher intraday. Indeed, the open gapped up above Wednesday afternoon’s 2655.00 bias environment high to form a “session-long rally” setup. But the next higher objective was likely to hold at only 2672.00 — kind of close for a session about to trend up.

In fact, 2672.00 held three intraday tests, including a very late surge to 2675.00 that nevertheless reacted down to 2662.50 through the close. But by then, the final hour had fulfilled its requirement to probe the prior timing window’s high, barely fulfilling the session-long rally setup. That final hour surge had come too late for buyers to gain traction for their efforts.

The morning following a session-long rally tends to extend higher — that doesn’t prevent a morning uptrend from reversing down into the close. Meanwhile, the morning after not gaining traction tends not to extend its rally without gapping up — probing higher highs anyway would be doomed to failure. So, higher highs Friday morning are likely. And they’re likely to be reversed down sharply if not begun by gapping up.

If the likelihood of probing higher is avoided altogether, then that would probably be due to trending down already overnight. So much of the price action under Thursday’s range has been so thoroughly tested that any probe under it could hit a deep air pocket and collapse. An afternoon reversal down from fresh highs would be vulnerable to that, anyway.

Details and other markets coverage are discussed in the post-market Wrap recording here.
Monitor overnight Globex trading in the chaRTroom here.