Trading Plan for 1/18

If the three-day weekend has any effect… then it is already discounted by price action through Wednesday”s close. The bearish WedEX has little excuse for letting Friday afternoon”s rally develop during it watch. It had measured a relevant degree of pessimism as of Wednesday”s close. But Friday did not behave bearishly.

Pattern points… (Setups and technicals)
That is, not unless a sudden, steep and substantial plunge were to compensate for its detour. And that”s still in the realm of possible resolutions for the passive bearish WedEX. Actually, it is the last remaining possibility. Setups to trend down at noon, to trend down at the 1:20 bias timing window, or simply to trend down before the close, all came and went.

In the process of ignoring its bearish bias, Friday afternoon did form a potentially bearish setup. That is the bias environment”s Symmetrical Triangle, a pattern that tends initially to break falsely in one direction before reversing more substantially in the opposite direction. Reversing is difficult on expiration day, so perhaps that stage is being delayed until Sunday night.

Meanwhile, the afternoon”s ranging actually began before the bias environment and lasted through it. Fresh highs weren”t probed until the last half hour, the least relevant timing window. Until then, Wednesday”s 2005.00 cash session closed had been serving as resistance.

WedEX missed its opportunities to invert and become bullish. So, either it failed, or else next week gets off to an ugly start.

What”s Next… (Outlook and opportunities)
There”s no Saturday Review this weekend, so the post-close Market Wrap looked at the bigger picture after discussing other markets. Please post any questions to the Activity Feed and I”ll get to them during the weekend. Enjoy!