Good morning! It was a rather wicked day for the day market intraday on Thursday. Following three waves of upside on the 15 minute charts, the market took the route laid out in Wednesday's column, whereby the indices rested longer on the 15 minute charts before following through with a fourth wave of upside into Thursday morning. This breakout occurred around 10:00 ET and the Dow soared to a six-year high. The rally only lasted about 30 minutes, however, before a rapid intraday correction began.

The market fell sharply off highs around 10:30 ET after putting in about an equal move on the breakout in the Dow and S&P 500 as compared to the last wave of buying going into the range (shown on the YM chart). The pace was even more rapid than the upside had been, stalling only slightly at the 10:45 ET reversal period before continuing into the morning lows in the weaker Nasdaq Composite and the 5 minute 20 sma in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

A small bear flag then led to a third and final push to lows. This brought the market into strong support once more on the larger intraday time frames. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 hit lows from early the prior afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, holding up better overall, came into its 15 minute 20 simple moving average support where it also found support. Given the pace of the move into these levels, however, the correction off them got off to a slow and choppy start.

Following the morning whiplash to highs and back again, the market was unable to commit to a bias into the afternoon. The S&P 500 and Dow both ended up stuck in the middle of their intraday range throughout the afternoon. The Nasdaq faired a little more poorly, holding closer to intraday lows and showing more of a bearish tendency into the close. It simply didn't follow up on that bias before the end of the day.

The rounding off on the daily at highs with that trend move of the three waves plus one and then the much more gradual upside pace on each of the intraday moves into the close leaves me feeling more bearish into Friday. Google (GOOG) had some strong afterhours action though coming out of its earnings, which will lead to a strong gap up in that sector. Earnings season always manages to add a little bit of excitement! Hence, I would urge greater caution ahead of the weekend as I expect risk to remain higher on Friday given the extension of many of the stronger stocks made earlier in the week.

Economic Reports and Events
Apr 24: -
Apr 25: Consumer Confidence for Apr (10:00 AM), Existing Home Sales for Mar (10:00 am)
Apr 26: Durable Orders for Mar (8:30 am), New Home Sales for Mar (10:00 am), Crude Inventories 04/21 (10:30 am), Fedââ,¬â"¢s Beige Book (14:00 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
Apr 21: MMM (?), ACI (B), F (B), HAL (B), IR (B), OXPS (?), RSH (?), SLB (06:00 am ET), ERICY (?), WYE (?)
Apr 24: ACL (A), ACF (A), AMTD (B), ANAD (?), ATHR (4:00 pm ET), CAT (?), CHKP (B), CB (A), CNET (A), CNF (A), FDG (?), GOL (A), HAS (B), KMB (B), LNCR (A), MSPD (?), NFLX (A), NBIX (A), NVS (B), NTRI (A), OMM (A), PTV (A), PCL (A), RCII (A), ROH (B), SVVS (A), SLAB (B), SWKS (A), UDR (A), VTSS (A), BER (A), WCN (A), WFT (B), XRX (B), YUM (A), ZL (?)
Apr 25: ACE (A), AKS (B), AMZN (4:00 pm ET), AMP (A), ASN (B), T (B), ATML (4:05 pm ET), BJS (B), BXP (A), BYD (?), BP (?), EAT (B), BMHC (B), BNI (B), CHRW (A), CNC (B), CKFR (A), CME (B), GLW (A), DV (A), DBD (B), DD (B), ENWV (A), ENR (B), ESV (?), ENTU (A), EXTR (A), FISV (?), FRX (B), HOLX (?), IMCL (?), NDE (B), IM (A), ISSX (A), JCOM (A), JEC (?), JBLU (?), KIM (B), LLL (B), LH (B), LAB (B), LSCC (A), LCAV (B), LXK (B), LMT (B), MTW (A), MSO (B), MVK (A), MTH (A), ,CRL (A), MCHP (A), MIL (A), MUR (?), NOC (B), OXY (B), PCAR (?), PNRA (?), PCZ (?), PPP (?), PWER (A), RFMD (?), SANM (?), SCSS (A), SEPR (B), SIRF (A), SII (B), SSCC (B), SO (B), STM (A), SNV (?), TE (A), CAKE (A), SSP (B), MHP (B), SWK (A), TRAD (?), TRI (A), TQNT (A), X (?), VLO (?), VAR (A), VRTX (A), VFC (?), VMC (A), WDR (B), WWY (?), XL (A)
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.