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Market Continues Lower on Choppy Action
By Toni Hansen | Published  12/1/2005 | Futures , Stocks | Unrated
Market Continues Lower on Choppy Action

Good morning! After two solid days of downside, the market continued lower on Wednesday. This time, however, the action was a lot more choppy. This made for a more difficult trading environment for index traders. A lot of individual stocks had some nice moves, but the indexes managed to add a bit of risk for the bulls. The NASDAQ, which had the most intraday weakness on Tuesday had a harder time following up the next day. While both the SP500 and Dow Jones Ind. Ave. continued lower, the NASDAQ was the most range bound.

 

The early morning range in the indices broke down around 13:30 ET after narrowing into a symmetrical triangle on the 5 minute charts along the 15 minute 20 sma. This took the indices back into the support zone of morning lows and slightly lower with the 12:00 ET reversal period. That lower low allowed for a trap of the late bears going into the early afternoon. The NASDAQ had the best reaction off the support, falling into a Phoenix on the 5 minute charts which broke higher into 13:00 ET. That choppy setup was able to push the index back into morning highs while the SP500 hit its 15 minute 20 sma resistance. The combination led to another pivot intraday and the market fell again going into the 2:00 Fed Beige Book.

It seems that lately these 2:00 Fed releases have more of an impact on the market intraday than they used to in the past. As a result, it's been more risky holding daytrades into them since the reaction can be rather whippy. This time the market popped quickly back to the 5 minute 20 sma after the NASDAQ retested the mid-day lows. The move was not able to sustain itself, however, and the market once again gave way to selling. The action was still choppy and difficult. With the NASDAQ's relative strength, I figured it would have the best chance of holding up into the close. The SP500 and Dow both fell more than I was initially looking for though.

With about an hour left in the day, I was expecting a pop on Thursday morning again since we were starting to see rounded lows. The sharper drop in the SP500 and Dow will make a pop more difficult. Instead we can actually see a gap lower now that the 10 day moving average is breaking. Once again, that 20 day sma is going to be the next main daily support and I am expecting that to hit within the next few trading days. On the weekly charts I am looking for this correction to continue for up to two months. A triangle on the daily and weekly charts seems mostly likely since the pace so far on the pullback has been pretty strong.

Economic Reports and Events
Nov. 30: Chain Deflator-Prel. for Q3 (8:30 am), GDP-Prel. for Q3 (8:30 am), Chicago PMI for Nov. (10:00 am), Crude Inventories for 11/25 (10:30 am), Fed's Beige Book (2:00 pm)
Dec. 1: Auto and Truck Sales for Nov. (12:00), Initial Claims for 11/26 (8:30 am), Personal Income and Personal Spending for Oct. (8:30 am), Construction Spending for Oct. (10:00 am), ISM Index for Nov. (10:00 am)
Dec. 2: Average Workweek, Hourly Earnings, Nonfarm Payroll, and Unemployment Rate for Nov. (8:30 am)
Dec 07: Crude Inventories 12/2 (10:30 am), Consumer Credit for Oct. (3:00 pm)
Dec 08: Initial Claims 12/03 (8:30 am)
Dec 09: Mich. Sentiment-Prel. for Dec (9:45 am), Wholesale Inventories for Oct. (10:00 am)
Dec 12: Treasury budget for Nov. (2:00 pm)
Dec 13: Retail Sales for Nov. (8:30 am), Retail sales ex-auto for Nov. (8:30 am), Business Inventories for Oct. (10:00 am), FOMC policy announcement (2:15 pm)

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
Nov. 30: TIF (B)
Dec. 1: DLM (?), FNSR (A), SYNC (acquired by NOK) (A), NOVL (A), OTVI (A),
Dec. 2: -
Dec 07: HOV (A), PLL (B)
Dec 08: COST (?), CMOS (?), NSM (?)
Dec 09: -
Dec 12: -
Dec 13: ADCT (A), BBY (?)

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.