Good morning!  The market put in a very narrow range day on Monday as we kicked off the new week. With the SP500 hitting prior daily highs, it was difficult for that index to find a strong footing. The NASDAQ still had more room to move into daily resistance, so it saw a lot stronger action out of the open. It broke Friday's highs within the first half an hour, stalling around 10:00 ET when the SP500 and Dow Jones Ind. Ave. both hit price resistance from the prior 5 minute highs on Friday afternoon.

As the market pulled back for the remainder of the morning, it did so at a more gradual pace than the upside move. It initially dropped into the lower end of the 15 minute range, but then popped back up and each decline on the 5 minute charts occurring more gradually than each upside move. The market then tried to break higher around 11:20 ET after volume had dropped off. The move put in only barely higher highs in the NASDAQ, but once the larger support hit at the 15 minute 20 sma, the breakout was able to put in an equal move in the NASDAQ as compared to the opening rally.
 

When the NASDAQ came into 5 minute equal move resistance, the SP500 and Dow were also hitting resistance from the highs of the range again. The reaction to this level was a pullback into the early afternoon. The pace was initially on the stronger side, retracing into the 5 minute 20 sma. At that point the volume declined again as the market hugged the 5 minute 20 sma support for about 45 minute before breaking down on a 5 minute Avalanche pattern into 14:00 ET. When that reversal period hit, the market was also coming into the lower end of the trading range once more and hence helped to serve as support.

The rest of the day was very slow as the market just climbed higher at a gradual pace into the highs of the range once more, hitting the breakdown zone from the Avalanche. Overall this narrow range, back and forth action meant higher risk throughout the day. A lot of the intraday setups in equities were more choppy than usual and many of the patterns that formed had more cons than you usually had to deal with. Sometimes it was the pace within the range that was off. In other cases the larger time frames were just very extended.

On a more positive note, the narrow range day should lead to stronger intraday trend action on Tuesday. The market is still going to have some major issues at a whole to deal with, such as the daily resistance from last month's highs, but intraday breakouts should have lower risk than on Monday.  With three waves of buying in on the 120 minute charts since the lows a couple of weeks ago, I will be using more caution on new long positions than on intraday short setups since the market tends to put in a larger correction after a third wave of buying in an uptrend.

Updates: Swingtrades: AMT from the 22nd has hit some trailing stops after hitting target. WLP from the 30th has trailing stops in place. AEIS from Monday has support at the 20 day sma. MRVL from Friday has support at Thursday lows. VRTX from Monday has support under the 20 day sma. Position trades: HSP and CHRS long have support at the lows of the weekly bases. I am looking at acquiring NTRS as a position trade buy on upside breakouts from the current range on the weekly chart. 

Economic Reports and Events
Sep 13: Core PPI for Aug. (8:30 am), PPI for Aug. (8:30 am), Trade Balance for Jul (8:30 am), Treasury Budget for Aug. (2:00 pm)
Sep 14: Retail Sales (8:30 am), Capacity Utilization (9:15 am), Industrial Production (9:15 am)
Sep 15: Business Inventories  for Jul. (8:30 am), Core CPI  for Aug. (8:30 am), CPI for Aug. (8:30 am), Initial Claims 9/10 (8:30 am), NY Empire State Index for Sep (8:30 am), Philadelphia Fed. for Sep (12:00 pm)
Sep 16: Current Account Q2 (8:30 am), Michigan Sentiment- Prel. for Sep (9:45 am)

Earnings Announcements of Interest
Only stocks with an average daily volume of 500K+ are listed. List may not be complete so be sure to always check your stocks' earnings dates before holding a position overnight. (A) = Earnings after the close, (B) = Earnings before the open, (?) = Earnings time not specified at the time of this writing
Sep 13: BBY (?), KR (B)
Sep 14: -
Sep 15: ADBE (A), BSC (B), PIR (?), TEK (?)
Sep 16: -

Toni Hansen is President and Co-founder of the Bastiat Group, Inc., and runs the popular Trading From Main Street. She can be reached at Toni@tradingfrommainstreet.com.