Mid-day Update… Better late than never.

Belated breaks bringing buyers.

The open’s gap up didn’t extend, but it was maintained. That wasn’t decisive enough to confirm extending, but sellers weren’t exploiting it. Fresh highs after the opening 15 minutes of volatility were too late to confirm extending, too. Sellers did exploit that, with a very last-minute 4-point spike down to probe the 2849.00 bias-up target and avoid renewing the bias-up signal. But it was still a bias-up environment, and the rally resumed.

Extending the open’s gap up, and/or renewing the bias-up signal would have targeted new highs. A new high followed anyway at the morning’s 2856.50 peak. Barely a new high, no less grudging than the delayed buying spurts preceding it.

But sellers still haven’t retaken control as this afternoon’s 2861.25 bias-up target is met one minute after entering the bias environment. And now it’s being probed by at least 1 point after an interim dip to its pullback limit.

Among my Friday Factors setups is the afternoon bias environment exit on a trending session. Exiting at fresh session highs is incredibly difficult to reverse down — not required to extend, but vulnerable to it anyway. Exiting the bias environment under a prior low or relevant level like 2857.75 would be vulnerable to dropping through the close.