Trading Plan for 12/26

If you haven’t yet checked out entirely for the holiday… then have a great Christmas, with my best wishes to you and your family!

Pattern points… (Setups and technicals)[pay]
Monday night’s choppy sideways ranging greeted Tuesday’s open essentially unchanged, unchanged from Monday’s close that was essentially unchanged from its 1822.00 opening print. That lack of momentum undermined buyers just a little — not enough to prevent extending higher, but enough to limit that extension. In practice, the unusually shallow 1828.00 bias-up target was met.

1828.00 was probed by 6 ticks, but only after the cash session had closed. Tuesday’s entire final hour ranged narrowly sideways between 1827.00-1828.00. Closing higher would have reflected strong-handed buyers. It was otherwise just noise.

Holiday-shortened sessions aren’t predictive. They can’t leave unfinished business outstanding. Their targets and technicals aren’t the product of normal participation, so they don’t much influence normal participants.

[/pay]What’s Next… (Outlook and opportunities)[pay]
All that having been said, Asian and European opens will be greeted with markets basically having rolled through their latest session. And there is somewhat less participation again to absorb any initial trending (Tokyo and London are closed, for example). Extending any higher would be vulnerable to reversing down through the afternoon and into the weekend. Reversing down, first, would gain traction if not absorbed early.[/pay]

Look for at least one update overnight or ahead of the Morning Market Tour… My thoughts on the day’s econ calendar are linked here.