No surprise here this morning before the open really as the market is rigged to go up probably 80% or more of the time, so expecting a nice setup to form for the bears is like buying a lottery ticket sometimes. I'm just glad I stayed in cash as that saved me from being trapped short this morning. Of course I refused to go long as we are quite overbought up here and overdue for a nice pullback. So I'm forced to wait for a better opportunity, which might just be around the corner here soon?

I don't see anything big setting up on the sell side for today so other then some possible morning dip I'd expect this rally up to hold into the close and maybe grind up a little higher even. I've been thinking that the past several days of sideways action could be a wave 4 of some degree so it's likely this is the wave 5 up happening now. I suspect this will carry over into next week too so there's very low odds of me taking any short over the weekend. Could it top today and drop on Monday? Sure, but I don't see it as likely.

There's nothing in the "possible" wave counts to give me enough clues that a big drop is coming. Dip buyers are always around at a top, so the first decent pullback will undoubtedly have a move back up... and that's what I'm looking for to short at. We are up in that area (2910-2920) where a top could happen. Again, it's just too early to know right now. But remember that it's common for the first attempt at a new all time high usually fails, so a pullback late next week is certainly possible. We need to see some weakness first though, which I think could happen on Monday or Tuesday. For today though I don't see any high odds trade. Have a great weekend.

I took yesterday off guys and it looks like I didn't miss much. On Tuesday after the close there was a FP on the SPY pointing to 288.95 around 4:25 pm. Then on Wednesday the market started the climb up to hit that FP but fell about 50 cents shy by the close. Then afterhours yesterday the grind up continued until about 9:30 pm where the FP was hit, and a pullback followed from there. Then it's back up again this morning to re-hit that FP (288.99) around 7:10 am, so I'm not sure if it will be hit again during the normal hours session as I have seen a fake print in the past trick me by hitting it during the afterhours/premarket period and reversed from there. Anyway, the bulls are still in control here as this sideways action is making a bull flag. But time is limited so they need to breakout to the upside soon and clear 2900 (and possibly the all time high too?) or else they will risk turning the ball over to the bears.

Knowing how rigged the market is I have to think that we could see another day of this action tomorrow too just so they can release some news over the weekend to gap it up and over resistance or tank it down hard with traders trapped on the wrong side. If this was a game of football then each green close on the market (the DOW and the SPX, but the DOW is most important I believe as it "foretells" weakest or strength) would be like gaining some yardage for another down. So while we've certainly seen more then 4 green days in a row happen it's not an exact science that each one green close equals a 1st down, 2nd down, 3rd down or 4th down. But I view today as being either the 3rd down or the 4th down... not sure which?

Put simply I think the bulls are running out of time here and need to breakout today or tomorrow or they will be forced to turn the ball over to the bears. If the bulls were smart here they would drop back some (small) to close red, which would be like them getting a penalty flag against the bears. I wouldn't go so far as to say they would earn another 1st down but the same down repeated over (to buy them an extra day) is certainly possible. It's weird to me why I even thought about comparing the market to football as I honestly don't watch it at all. I don't think I have in 10 or 20 years? Crazy!

But I did go to see the Jacksonville Jaguars 3 or 4 live when they first became a new football team back in 1990 something. It was their first year and I have to say it was a lot of fun at the time. I played a men's softball for about 10 years back then too and loved it... waaaaaay more fun then baseball as you get to hit the ball a lot more and never really strike out. More action is more fun. Anyway, for today I'll be focused on seeing if the bulls can squeak out a little more upside and hold it into the close today. If we do close green I'll be looking for a short, but my hunch is that we'd close slightly red today and then green tomorrow to fool bulls and bears alike so they will both be positioned wrong on Monday.

Then all you need is some news properly released over the weekend to get the next big move started. I still think it will be down and I wouldn't be shocked one bit if we didn't pullback small today and squeeze up hard tomorrow to get within 10-20 points of that all time high. If I were SkyNet that's what I'd do. Then everyone will assume we are going to take out that all time high next week and will be long. They will be thinking a nice pierce through it would put in a top and then they would want to short that double top zone.

However, SkyNet rarely gives everyone what they want. From my experience the first move up toward a prior high falls short of it by just enough points keep traders from taking a short position, and hanging out around 2900 is certainly well below that double top area. Even a fast squeeze tomorrow to say the 2920's is below that all time high enough to keep the bears from jumping onboard. So today at the close or tomorrow could be the short setup I've been waiting on. I'll let everyone know when and if I short in the chatroom of course.

Yesterday was showing some life by the bears at the open but it all faded away by the close. This morning we see the futures about flat so I have to think that if this continues into tomorrow the bears will likely be toast as it will become a nice bull flag for the bulls to launch higher from. Clearly there's a battle here at the 2900 even number level but bulls have the edge and while a significant pullback is long overdue it's not looking good right now. This week is still young but it's leaning toward a breakout to the upside right now.

Bears really need to drive the bulls back today if they want stand a chance on creating a nice pullback. I have my doubts on it happening though as if the bulls can just go sideways one more day they will run into a rising trendline of support where they can launch back up from to take out 2900 and then some. Now... will we hit a new all time high? I just don't know? Maybe, but usually new highs are NOT created on the first attempt up, so if they take out 2900 decently this week and make a run for that 2942 all time high then it should fail and fall short and pullback from it.

But if it just barely drops and holds above 2900 all week then it could certainly push through to a new all time high next week. Meaning that in that scenario it would have much better odds on a second attempt, but this first attempt is one that "usually" fails. I'm still in the camp of thinking that we'll see an 80-100 point pullback before a new all time high.

And as I'm writing this morning update about an hour before the open I see the futures rolling over now. Not much but not flat like before either. Maybe we drop to that rising trendline over the next day or so and then make another run back up? This is what I mean when I say that when the market gets close to a form all time high it will commonly pullback, and the futures did hit the 2900.00 exactly in the afterhours session, so that might be all she wrote for that attempt higher.

On the SPY I noticed that the futures hit a high of 288.93 in the weekend afterhours session but by the open Monday they gaped down. Then the rally back up into the close yesterday when as high as 288.91... just shy of that prior high. It means to me that the weekend high and drop to the Monday morning low could have been a small A wave down in some kind of ABC pattern.

Then the rally all day into the close to stop just 2 cents shy of the weekend high was the small B wave up. If so then the current early morning drop just might be the start of the small C wave down, which could go into the 286.00-286.50 area if correct? This was the pattern I was looking for yesterday and talked about all day in the free chatroom but that rally up into the close had me thinking I was wrong as it went so high. Now it's possible again. Still a "best guess" type of market right now. Good luck.

It's always hard to figure out Mondays lately as they seem to be pause days before the market decides the direction for the week. But we are getting up into that zone where a nice pullback is likely. The bulls now are expecting a double top or higher high as the bears have pretty much given up. I find that when you look back at the past you'll see many times where the market rallies up into a resistance zone where a double top hit is possible but it seems to fall short the majority of the times on the first attempt. Rarely does it blast up through it on the first go at it, so this time shouldn't be any different.

There's likely a pullback coming (I'd guess 80-100 SPX points) before the all time high is taken out. Since we are so close now I'd have to think this week will be when that pullback starts. What day it starts though is another story? So I'll just keep this update short and end it here. We are close for sure. Maybe we go up a little more but I'm not expecting any new all time high before a decent pullback happens first. Maybe it starts today, just don't know? I'll just take it day by day and so far I don't have any clues for this morning. Best of luck to you.

Futures are up again this morning after a nice pop at 8:30 am. It seems pretty clear they want that 2900 level, but this could also be a bull trap so I wouldn't get too excited about it at this point. Today might be a tricky day as the market makers need to pin the SPY at a certain level to force both puts and calls to expire worthless. Looking at the open interest on various strike prices the 290 level has the most calls and 285 has the most puts, so a pin between 287 and 288 seems most likely to me. It's hard to know for sure but it wouldn't surprise me at all if this morning pop fades by the close.

I don't see any high odds trades for today or the close as the bulls still have full control right now. I'd like to see some shake out moves where we drop and rally and drop and rally before I'd believe a nice pullback was going to happen. And I'd like to see some volume behind it. Call it some wave 1's down and wave 2's up if you want, but that's basically what is needed to put in a top and drop. My guess is that we won't see that happen until we at least hit and pierce through that even number level of 2900, which I don't see today but very possible for Monday or Tuesday.

If I were SkyNet I'd drop it some today to lure in shorts for the weekend, and then squeeze them hard on Monday to hit 2900 by the open. That's about the only way I can see them pushing the market higher as there is NO real buying right now of stocks. The big boys have been selling into this topping area for quite awhile now. If the futures market didn't exists then they wouldn't have the ability to squeeze the shorts, and the stock market would probably be about one half to one third of its present value... yeah, it's that crazy.

You've seen other countries shutdown the ability for traders to short and their market collapsed even further. Shorting is what keeps the market going up... as crazy as that sounds. Take that away and all you have is buying and selling of stock, so the big boys would be trying to sell at tops into the retail sheep but if they aren't buying then the stocks would collapse. But when you get someone on the futures market short the big boys can spend a small amount of money overnight when volume is super low to buy up stocks and make the market go up, which then will force the shorts to cover their position at the open. This is where the bigger volume comes in.

While that buying back of stocks at higher prices then the level they shorted them at is going on the insiders will sell their stock into that forced buying. It's NOT real buying by investors that think the stock is going up over time but FORCED buying by trapped shorts. It's a HUGE difference as it creates bubbles in the market, which lead to big drops at some point in the future and crashes too. But, it's setup that way on purpose so the insiders can continue to steal from the sheep.

They control the media so you'll always see the financial Guru's on TV pumping a stock after it's ran up 80-90% of it's move and brag about the last 10-20% move. Then they never tell you to sell it at the top but go quite and move on to some other subject or stock. Naturally the stock collapses over time as the big boys have sold out and aren't supporting the stock by doing anymore buying and the retail sheep are already "all-in", so they can't help.

Once the stock drops enough the big boys pay the Guru's to start trash talking the stock again to drive the price down further so the insiders can buy it back from the panicked retail sheep. That process starts after the stock has fallen 80-90% of the move down where the big boys want to buy it back at. The Guru then brags again about that last 10-20% of the drop telling the sheep they should have sold as it dropped that last little bit. Then the Guru goes quiet again while the insiders buy it all up at cheap prices. The process repeats over and over and over. Have a great weekend.

The bears finally woke up yesterday as the rally up by the bulls was attacked by midday and drove down into near the close where the market actually went red for awhile. But at the last minute the bulls run it back up to close it green. This was what I kinda thought might happen as the bulls got close to the even number of 2900 yesterday. As I mentioned in yesterdays post it's quite common to see the first attempt at an even number level fail, which it did. Ok, from what I see from others who do Elliottwave we were apparently in some kind of small wave 3 up inside a little bigger wave 3 up since over a week or so ago.

I'm not sure what they think of this pullback but my thoughts are that it's the small wave 4 down inside that little bigger wave 3 up. Now if it finished yesterday then we should have a small wave 5 up today to end it and end the little bigger wave 3 up. We all know that 5th waves can truncate short so it doesn't have to make a higher high today... and it doesn't have to complete today. It could grind up into Friday before it ends.

There's also the chance that it could subdivide into an ABC small wave 4 down. So lot's of possibilities here. That's why I find it very hard to trade off of Elliottwave along. But added with other methods it can be helpful. So if we go up today near the high from yesterday it should either be the small wave 5 up to complete the little bigger wave 3 up, or just the B wave up of the small wave 4 down... which in both cases another move down should follow.

Therefore I'll be watching closely for that move up to short it. It might not happen today as I said and instead get dragged out into Friday. Then there's also the possibility that we chop sideways early today and drop into the close, which I think think we did indeed subdivide into an ABC and the drop at the end of the day would be the C wave of that small wave 4 down. Then they could rally up Friday for the small wave 5 and put in a double top if they wanted and setup next Monday for the little bigger wave 4 down to start. These are all the possible moves I see as possible for today. I'll of course add my thoughts through out the day in the free chatroom to let everyone know where I think we are at. Have a blessed day on this beautiful planet. Thank God spring is here.

Futures up again this morning with yesterdays flat open looking like a consolidation day now. Gap after gap they keep pounding on the bears. They are so close now to the 2900 level that I'm sure most are thinking it's a "given" and that's usually when SkyNet pulls a fast one on them and does a pullback. It's not something I'm willing to bet on but it's common for the first attempt at an even number level to fall shy by 10-20 points, so if there's ever a day to trick the sheep and reverse back down some today would be a good one.

If I were SkyNet I'd go sideways early in the day and then drop it into the close to trap longs and make the bears miss it. Again, not something I'd bet on as clearly the bulls have the momentum here and could just keep on going up pushing through 2900 and running for the all time high, but too me that's exactly what I think most people will see as likely... which is why I think the opposite might happen.

As far as technicals there's not much to say... and wave counts still suggest this is some kind of C wave up and one that's subdivided into 5 smaller waves, which now suggest yesterdays sideways action was a wave 4 and this morning we should be in a wave 5 up. Of course it might subdivide into smaller waves too, which would be needed I think if they plan on taking out the all time high on this push up. A better plan would be to pullback today in my humble opinion and make another rally attempt later.

I don't really have anything else to add to this update. It's at one of those times where there's no much clear in the charts for the direction. It's been bullish now for awhile and I guess it will continue to be bullish until it's not. We should be close now to a pullback but "close" could be another rally up tomorrow, and/or the next day. So I sit waiting... Happy Hump Day.

Futures are flat this morning, which is normal after such a large move up. And most days after such a large move are consolidation days, where the market just chops sideways with very little up or down movement. At this point I'd have to think that the bulls want that even number level of 2900 next, but usually even number level aren't reached on the first attempt. They tend to get close to them but fall shy somewhere in the 70-90 zone. Then they pullback a little and repeat the process several times until they have shaken out the bulls and lured in enough bears to squeeze up to that level... which is then commonly pierced through by 10-20 points. Will they do the same this time around too? Only time will tell I guess.

For trades I just don't see one as there needs to be some kind of up and down action happen before the technicals can work properly. Plus counting waves here isn't much help either as while most likely yesterdays move up was a wave 3 of some degree it's still unknown if it has ended or not? So today is just a day to watch I guess as while I think we are close to a top and pullback it might not happen until tomorrow or later in the week. I think the bulls are just going to hold their ground today and let the bears burn time on their put options. It's looking like a boring day so far. Best of luck.

P.S.  I just went back to look at a prior post I did on March 27th and on the chart I have us in a C wave up of a B wave.  That seemed to have played out yesterday, so maybe just have some brain fog this morning since I haven't had my coffee yet?

ES Morning Update March 27th 2019

The bulls are off to a great start this Monday morning with futures up about 20 points or so. It's right up near the prior high on March 21st so basically it's a double top right now. The question is... will it stop here or push up through it and go higher? Most of the time any double top will stop the bulls on the first attempt, it's triple tops that don't always hold. And I've noticed that double tops that are so close to each other time wise (only 11 calendar days), seem to hold better too.

Then we have to look at how long this rally has been going on to see if it's near it's final end... which I'd have to stay "yes", it's in the last series of waves up. But that doesn't mean it will collapse right away. More then likely it will be a rounded top that takes weeks to months to tired out and final produce a large correction again. But seeing some 50-100 point pullbacks (SPX) is not out of the question and should start happening soon. Dip buyers will continue to come in and buy each one up until such point where the bulls just can go higher then whatever the prior high was. We are not even close to that period yet.

But we are close to seeing a 50-100 point drop, like it could happen before this week ends. Short term though we usually don't see much happen on Mondays but I'll be watching to see if the bulls can push through this double top or not today. My guess is that they don't and that they pullback small tomorrow, then back up Wednesday to try again, and then down on Thurs/Fri for that pullback. The high on Wednesday could be a lower top or a slight pierce through this double top area from March 21st... no way to know for sure?

My guess is based on this strong move up this morning being some kind of wave 3 that should have a small wave 4 down (possibly Tuesday?) and 5th wave up to end it (maybe Wednesday?)... which again could end short or pierce through the prior recent high by a few points. This is all just a best guess. I'm hoping the charts will tell me something (like negative divergences, etc...) but of course they don't always works as the market is extremely manipulated. Technicals in the charts and wave counts can help but they do not work on a "stand alone" basis. You still need other things too. Anyway, let's see if the market holds this level and goes sideways all day, as that wouldn't surprise me one bit. Wait.... this just in! The market is going to crash today! April Fools...

Yesterday was a little crazy with a pop higher at the open that faded and rolled over after about an hour, to then be followed by another rally into the end of the day. But these moves are all done on light volume, not a good sign of a strong rally in my opinion. Meaning that it does not feel like they have squeezed any shorts out as volume would certainly increase if that were to trigger. Still though, the market continues to grind higher inch by inch. It's hard too be a bull or bear right now as there's really not any clear direction.

Yes, I'm more bullish here then bearish, but not by some huge amount, and not with enough confidence to go long. It's more of a "wait and see" market for me right now. Eventually we'll see a nice setup. It will either find a final top that I can short, or it will do a tricky move one day with a gap down that puts in a bottom that I can go long at.

There's still a "possible" FP from several weeks back that suggests a drop to the 2750's is coming. I'd have to go back and find it but I think it was for 275.68 on the SPY. It would make sense for a final drop to happen as well because from the top last week to the bottom this week it's pretty clear that it's some kind of wave A down and B up.

So when this B up finishes there should be a drop for that C down to finish this move... which might just be at that FP level? I feel like time is running out for the bulls but closing this month out (and quarter) on a very large percentage gain is likely the plan. So any down move for that C wave probably isn't going to start today since it's the last day of the month. Next week though there should be some kind of top appear and I hope I can catch it before it heads south. Have a great weekend.

Last night the futures were down as much as 15 points but this morning they are pretty much flat. So I'm still thinking we go up first to squeeze out the shorts before any bigger drop happens. It's not something I put money on as I'd call it a 60/40 odds setup in favor of the bulls. I really don't want to risk money on such low odds as I'd prefer 75% at minimum and 80%+ as ideal. But those setups with such high odds don't come along very often, so I do a lot of waiting unfortunately. However, with so much time spent in this sideways range-bound trading zone I have to think there will be a squeeze on the bears before any real pullback happens.

Now if the bulls would have just went up quickly and hit some important level top (say 2850 for example) and quickly reversed then they would have trapped the bulls and a sell off could have happened. But they didn't do that as they took their sweet time grinding up a little each day for the last month or so with some short lived pullbacks along the way. That kind of action is a sign of slow and steady distribution at a topping area by the big boys, any moves like that almost never produce a fast and meaningful drop right afterwards. Anyway, back to the short term, which is still choppy and hard too figure out on a wave count bias, but I'm sticking with up first and then down. Have a bless day on this beautiful Earth that God created for us.

Not much going on this morning from the looks of the futures but the last 2 days could have produced an A wave up and B down of some degree. The B down could still be in play today but it's trying to hold and turn back up, so a C wave might be next on the agenda. Wave counting is always just a "best guess" when trying to use it for forecasting the future. The bigger picture wave counts are usually easier to get correct but short term ones are quite hard. So I look for technicals too as well as what's going on for that week (FOMC meetings, Monthly Options Expiration, Holidays, Big News Events, etc...) to help me try and figure it all out. This week is the last week of both the month of March and the best quarter on record for percentage gains in a very, very long time.

Therefore it makes sense that the big boys will want to write this down in their books to show off and be proud of themselves... plus use it to advertise of course too. That could be one of the reasons we've not seen much selling going on as they all are holding long until this quarter ends, and then re-evaluate the market and it's potential to keep going north or if odds favor a large pullback (which of course they would want to avoid riding down and therefore would want to sell some up here in this zone before it happens).

On the short term I'll be watching to see if we can get some ABC move up where there's negative divergence on the 60 minute chart to give the move better odds of a move down starting afterwards. This might happen into the close today or tomorrow but I doubt if it drags out into Friday. By then I'd just call the wave count wrong as it would be way too sloppy looking to figure out.

Right now though it does look like an A wave down started from the high last week and then a B up start this Monday at the low. This B up subdivided with its' A up into the high yesterday and the drop midday making the B down. So again, "if" the market can carve out a C up into tomorrow (that makes a lower high then last week) then that ABC move should end the larger B up and setup a C down afterwards.

I'll believe it when I see it as the bulls are so tricky that I doubt if they will like it play out so obvious. In fact that larger A down last week subdivided into a smaller ABC down as well, but the A down was about 40 points, then B up was 30 points and C down was 35 points... and that is certainly NOT a normal C wave as they are supposed to be larger then the A wave. Anyway, that's all I have for today, just some "speculation" on what "might" happen. Happy Hump Day.

So far the market looks "on path" to rally some early in the week as discussed yesterday, which was a "basing" day as the market closed about flat at the end. Today though we see the future up over 10 points already so hopefully this holds and grinds up a little high again tomorrow and maybe early Thursday too? It's holding a rising trendline but still looks like a bear flag to me. I don't really have any upside target for this multi-day rally but instead I'd just prefer for it to continue a slow grind up and make that nice looking bear flag. But the last move up should be a squeeze day that doesn't go higher then the high last week but high enough to lure in more longs expecting a breakout and scare out bears. Not much else to add to this mornings post. It's just a waiting game now I believe. Patience.

Last Friday certainly took me by surprise as I thought it was going to be a typical boring sideways consolidation day to put everyone to sleep. But it was nothing near it the market dropped more in that one day then we've seen in a month or two. Fears of a recession are popping back up now as the 10 year treasuries dropped lower then the 3 month one's, which has resulted in a recession starting within a year later every time going back a 100 years according to some. I'm going to include two video's here by others that explain better then I do. But the bottom line is that unless this condition can be reversed quickly the odds of a bull market starting after the coming low for my FP target are not good.

I still firmly believe the FP I have will be the low for the year, but since this statistic points to a year out before any recession normally begins it's still possible to put in this FP low for this year and rally some, then next year start the recession. And lets also keep in mind that we've had recessions before that simply produce a range-bound market between some high zone and low zone. So it doesn't mean for certain that we are going to crash and go into a full blown depression. However, I do think it's important to continue following this situation to see if the government can reverse it... and quickly before it's too late to change the odds. Moving on to the short term.

This week I suspect we'll have some type of attempt back up early on (like Monday to Wednesday), but if the bulls fail to take out last weeks high I'd expect a larger drop to happen Wednesday to Friday, which the 2750's area would be the target low. From a wave count point of view the move down on Friday would be the A wave, then the move up into mid-week would be the B wave. Finally would be a C wave down into Friday. After that... who knows? I'd assume another rally attempt back up in April would follow. This rally up from the December lows has been super powerful so I don't expect it to give up and drop straight to my FP on the first down move attempt. There should be several more rallies I'd think as the bulls rarely give up that easily. Anyway, we'll just take it one day at a time. Happy Monday.

Another tricky move by the bulls yesterday as the rally up surprised most and went further then many expected. The only good thing for me was I didn't get caught shorting it on the way up, but I never went long either and missed a great move. As far as wave counts... they seem to be wrong the A down was about 40 points, then that FOMC squeeze up was 30 points (the B wave) and the C down was only 35 points, so does that even work? I don't know?

Elliottwave never seems to work in forecasting the next move correctly as far as I can tell, but I still use it with other indicators to assist me. Anyway, as far as today goes I simply don't know? I have zero clues on the direction. It's looking like it's going to open down but will it continue all day like the rally up yesterday or will it get reversed after the open and go back up? From a historical point of view most strong up day are met with a pause day afterwards. Meaning it chops sideways in a tight range to consolidate the prior days gains.

Then there's the fact that today ends the week as it's Friday and many times nothing much goes on all day. Mondays seem to be the same way many times as Tuesday to Thursday is where all the big action appears the most. But those are old patterns or rules that might not apply too much anymore with all trading being done electronically versus having real people on the floor of some stock exchange executing the orders. Still though, real people are placing trades, even if it's sitting at their computer screen and not using a phone to call a floor broker.

So I have to think that those "real people" still come into to work on Monday a little tired from the weekend and need some time to get caught up on emails, drink some coffee, study the market, and plan their trading week. Then by Friday they wrap it all up by closing out positions and try to sneak out early for the weekend. So whatever happens early this morning is probably going to be the only action today as the light volume should take the market into pause mode into the close I suspect, which is usually sideways to slight up.

My best guess is that the weakness this morning is just traders from yesterday closing out longs and that it will be over with in a few hours and the market will float back up the rest of the day. I'd be shocked if the entire rally up from yesterday got erased today on an equal move back down. I guess anything is possible but it's not something I can see in advance and so I won't chance shorting or going long today as I don't have any high odds setup for either direction... just "best guesses" based on past "patterns", and that's not something I want to bet real money on. Have a very blessed weekend.

Yesterday's FOMC produced a nice fast squeeze up that was most like some kind of B wave with the A wave down starting the day before and ending midday before the meeting. Then before the close that strong bounce rolled over and fell sharply into the close to completely reverse it all but stayed a hair higher then the midday low. Was that the start of the C wave down or does the B wave up still have more to go?

If you ask me that yesterday afterhours I'd said that odds favored the B wave subdividing into 3 waves as the futures were up about 8 points then, so it looked like today was going to open up strong but this morning you can clearly see that the 8 point rally got reversed completely and we are now about to open red this morning. The futures also went lower then the low yesterday, so I have to conclude now that the B wave up was just one wave and will not subdivide. That doesn't mean we can't rally some today but odds favor the market being in a C wave down right now.

We know it's common for them to subdivide into 5 waves so it's possible that the drop yesterday into the close and continuation this morning is just the wave 1 down of that C wave and any bounce back up today is a wave 2 of the C down. Catching it at the top of that wave 2 is the goal for those looking to short it. Since the A down went about 40 points from the 2858 top the midday low of 2818 yesterday, and the B up ended around 2848 the C down so go to 2808 if C = A, or deeper of course as C's commonly do. I suspect we go deeper but that's just a guess of course. After this move down completes I'm expecting another rally back up to start for a second attempt at taking out the recent 2858 high. Good Luck as always.

More grinding up again this morning it seems. This is of course done during an FOMC week as we certainly don't want to see the Fed's get blamed for a down market do we... LOL. In the past I've noticed that "turns" (down) don't happen until a few days after an FOMC meeting, and are blamed on some other event. The weekend after an event is commonly used to release some bad news so the next week starts going down.

So while a top could show up this Thursday or Friday this early market strength makes me think they will wait until next Monday. Why? Because usually there is some kind of small weakness the day before an FOMC meeting to start the series of shake out waves. Basically a series of wave 1's down and wave 2's up repeatedly during the entire FOMC week to end the last one on Friday and therefore allow the wave 3 down to start the following Monday.

Since it's looking strong today (at least for the open) I suspect those series of waves will start after the meeting this Thursday and Friday and best short will appear next Monday. It's more of a gut call here based on patterns I've noticed during prior FOMC weeks. As for today... I have little to give you. It's starting off bullish and will likely end that way too. Good Luck.

Welcome to FOMC week where the market does a lot of nothing until the Fed's speak... which is this Wednesday at 2pm EST. But a short-able top is very near, so hang in there bears. In the past the market was held up until 1-2 days after the FOMC as the Fed's don't want to take the blame for anything bad but instead just brag about the good they do (which isn't much in my humble opinion). So writing a long post this morning is really worthless. I'm not expecting much to happen until after the meeting is over with, so I'll likely be in and out of the chatroom through out the day today and tomorrow doing something productive around the house.

The bulls are up against some tough resistance overhead in the 2850-2880 zone from many angles. I really doubt if they can push this market up much more. All the bears have pretty much been squeezed out as shown by on this chart (courtesy of Twitter @OntheMoney) where volume dries up in the price zone above. There are other things too that says a pullback is very near, like the negative divergence now on the daily chart as well as Elliottwave counts suggesting we are in a final wave up of some degree.

Putting it simple... this week is the most likely week to top out and start a move down of 100+ points or so. But again I don't expect a lot until after the FOMC, so enjoy the warming weather until then if you can. For me it's getting up in the 50's early this week and 60's later in the week, so I'm ready for spring to come and winter to leave. Hopefully the bears are waking up soon too as I'm ready for a trip down south. Have a great day.

More grind today again it seems... at least here at the open. I'm not expecting much to happen today as again this is Quad Witching week and I'm sure the market makers have already picked the level where maximum damage will be done to the bulls and bears both, so the "pin" level is near. The SPY dropped about a $1 today to adjust for the quarterly dividends, so it's about flat while the futures are up 10 points or so. This is normal and happens every quarter. Anyway, today looks like another boring light volume day, so I'm not going to write a long post here. Next week though should be very interesting and a lot more exciting. Have a great weekend.