Trading Plan for 3/28

The 1311.00 target was met, and met often… Thursday’s post-close spike up sliced through it. It was retested overnight. Friday morning’s surge tested it. And then a post-close surge ended there. That’s ample opportunity for the market to close above it, if the market had wanted to close above it. [pay]

Pattern points… (Setups and technicals)
Testing, but not closing above the rally’s 1311.00 suggests that buyers are satisfied. Especially while also testing its noise range up to 1314.00, and peaking there. And even more especially when the cash session closed back at the 1308.25 opening gap.

That last factor is the most bearish. It could have been more bearish, but it certainly wasn’t bullish. Closing back at the 1308.25 opening print, when the opening print is a gap up to fresh highs, means that all intraday price action above it was distribution.

Keep in mind my caveat about Thursday’s post-close 7-point spike up. It’s certainly optimistic, but not necessarily bullish. If not extended higher, then really it only reflects market elasticity. An environment able to produce a spike one way is also capable of generating a bigger spike the other way.

All that having been said, sellers have yet to prove they could exploit a bigger spike down.

Their recent attempts included no-bias downtrending and bias-up downtrending, all doomed to failure. And when they finally triggered a bias-down signal, the bias-down target was already met and held. If sellers haven’t yet figured out how to prevent another higher close, then 1324.00 and potentially new highs at 1338.00 could be in-play.

What’s Next… (Outlook and opportunities)
Friday afternoon’s late dip to the 1309.50 bias-down signal was another bad effort by sellers. Its support was probed and recovered just before the bias environment started lapsing. Its support was chipped away further into the close, another ill-timed effort.

Delaying 1309.50‘s break into another session now lowers the signal to 1306.00. Its break would be confirmed by extending under 1304.50 at an accelerated pace. Quickly recovering 1313.00 should at least probe fresh highs intraday before being vulnerable to reversing down sharply. Closing above 1314.00 would simply point higher.[/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.