Good morning! The market has had a pretty rough time picking a direction lately. On Thursday the action was once again split. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the weakest, ending the day down 65 points at 11,150.70. The S&P 500 also closed lower by 2.64 points at 1,300.25. Only the Nasdaq Composite managed to post a gain on the day, a mere 3.04 points, closing at 2,353.15. The homebuilders ($HGX) and airline ($XAL)  stocks trended lower throughout most of the session. Brokers ($XBD) saw gains early in the day, but ended with only a 0.3% gain. Computer hardware ($GHA) faired similarly with a 0.7% gain. Gold ($GOX) and oil ($OSX) held up better. Gold closed up 3.5% with oil up 0.9%.

The first 45 minutes of the day went well with the market climbing steadily higher, putting in three small waves of buying on the 1 and 2 minutes charts until the Dow ran into 5 and 15 minute 200 sma resistance intraday. This hit with the 10:15 ET reversal period and the market pivoted strongly off that level. It took only 2/3 to half that amount of time to give back all the gains and retest morning lows. The market stalled at that point at the 10:45 ET reversal period before continuing.

The market again had a strong wave of downside on the five minute charts. After putting in an equal move on the continuation as compared to the first drop to morning lows, the continuation move hit stronger support and moved more gradually into noon. The Nasdaq at this point was hitting support from the prior day's closing lows, while the Dow was coming into the lows of the prior two days. The S&P 500 also ran into price support from earlier pivot highs on Wednesday morning.

The indices moved slowly into early afternoon resistance, stalling at the 5 minute 20 sma zone in the S&P 500 and Dow and the continuation zone on the 5 minute Nasdaq. Volume was light on this retracement and aided in an early afternoon decline to new intraday lows. Once again the Dow dropped the strongest. The Nasdaq, which had bounced more off morning lows, found support at that level once again shortly after 13:00 ET, creating a 15 minute 2B pattern by trapping those concerned with a few ticks under the prior lows. This decline showed enough change in pace to allow for a reversal into the close, but not enough to mount a strong rally. We can easily see this type of action continue into early next week, but currently the weekly and monthly charts are looking like they will eventually resolve to the upside.

Economic Reports and Events
Mar 31: Personal Income and Personal Spending for Feb. (8:30 AM ET), Mich. Sentiment-Rev. for March (9:50 AM ET), Chicago PMI for March and Factory Orders for Feb. (10:00 AM ET)
Apr 03: Construction Spending for Feb (10:00 am), ISM Index for Mar (10:00 am), Auto Sales for Mar (12:00 am), Truck Sales for Mar (12:00 am)
Apr 04: -
Apr 05: ISM Services for Mar (100:00 am), Crude Inventories 03/31 (10:30 am)
Apr 06: Initial Claims 04/01 (8:30 am)
Apr 07: Average Workweek for Mar (8:30 am), Hourly Earnings for Mar (8:30 am, Nonfarm Payrolls for Mar (8:30 am), Unemployment Rate for Mar (8:30 am), Wholesale Inventories for Feb (10:00 am), Consumer Credit (15:00 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 stock's earnings date 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
Mar 31: -
Apr. 3: ME (B)
Apr. 4: -
Apr. 5: BBBY (?), CBK (A), MON (B),
Apr. 6: AM (B), STZ (A), LWSN (A), PIR (B), RIMM (?), RAD (?), RPM (B)
Apr. 7: NDN (?)
Apr. 10: AA (?), SCHN (B)
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column.

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.