Good day! Despite it being a Fed day, Tuesday was also very slow. The day began with a slight downside gap, but the market moved higher from that point on, which is pretty typical of a Fed morning. The NASDAQ saw a 5 minute bull flag off the 20 sma around 10:15 ET, taking it to new intraday highs, but the SP500 and Dow Jones Ind. Ave. lagged behind, holding their range heading into mid-day.

As the day wore on, volume remained very light and the range on the day very narrow. The market held the 10:45 ET reversal period, leading to a slow correction over noon. This steady move continued into the 15 minute 20 sma support where we saw the market hold until the 2:15 ET FOMC announcement was released. By raising the Fed rate a quarter-percent, right in line with expectations, the market saw very little reaction.

Typically you see three waves of reaction to a Fed announcement. On Tuesday, the first wave came with a selloff into morning lows where support held and the market bounced strongly back to highs and beyond. It is not uncommon for this second wave to be stronger than the first. In this case it took the NASDAQ into its 20 day sma resistance before we saw our third wave of reaction: another selloff back to lows, starting off slowly, but picking up speed with a 2 minute Avalanche into 15:00 ET.

As the market came back into lows, the pace on the selling made a correction off support rather difficult and the market fell into a range along lows. This began the formation of a 5 minute bear flag right along the 5 minute 200 simple moving average support intraday. In the SP500 and Dow this pattern actually triggered shortly before the close, but around the same time, news hit that the Fed forgot to include a key sentence in its 2:15 ET statement and this yanked the indices higher again into the close, causing a bit of pain for shorters who didn't cover quickly enough.

WLT and YELL, swingtrade shorts from the beginning of last week, both have trailing stops in place. WLT is starting to round off at lows intraday and YELL gapped higher on Monday and based at highs into Tuesday, making it higher risk to hold over night. It held the range throughout Tuesday, however, so that trailing stop is still holding. PENN, as a long, broke higher out of the pullback on the daily charts on Monday but had a whippy day on Tuesday. The 100 day sma remains support. AAP put in higher highs as a position trade from last Monday, but is looking to correct on the daily chart for a week or so.  ASKJ is still of interest and is finally starting to see the intraday pace turn over to also favor the bulls.

While I don't have a strong directional bias for the market on Wednesday, I do expect to see a bit more action then we've seen so far. With two rather light volume days under the belt, it is more likely that activity will pick up now that the Fed is behind us. I will be relying primarily on intraday patterns for guidance since I have not found much on the daily charts for swingtrade patterns so far this week.

Economic Reports and Events
May 04: ISM Services for Apr (10:00 am)
May 05: Initial Claims 04/30 (8:30 am), Productivity-Prel. for Q1 (8:30 am)
May 06: Average Workweek for Apr (8:30 am), Hourly earnings for Apr (8:30 am), Nonfarm Payrolls for Apr (8:30 am), Unemployment Rate for Apr (8:30 am), Consumer Credit for Mar (3:00 pm)
May 09: Wholesale Inventories for Mar (10:00 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
May 04: APCS (A), ALVR (B), ABV (A), APPX (?), AMT (B), AMKR (A), ADRX (A), ANPI (?), AQNT (?), ILA (B), ACLS (A), BEC (B), BEV (B), ÇDIS (A), CNQ (B), CI (B), XEC (B), CMS (B), CREO (A), DF (B), DVN (B), D (B), DUK (B), EXPD (A), FRP (B), FBR (A), GPRO (A), GNSS (A), HL (B), HUN (B), INCY (B), IACI (B), KEM (A), LAMR (B), MXO (A), NBL (B), PCG (?), PWER (B), PRU (A), PEG (B), QLGC (A), QSFT (A), RNWK (?), PKS (A), SYMC (?), TWX (B), TOT (?), UVN (A), VCLK (A), WON (?), WFMI (A), ZBRA (B)
May 05: ATVI (A), AES (B), ANR (?), AIV (B), BRL (B), BBI (?), BWNR (B), CVC (B), CPT (A), CLX (?), CPWR (A), CNO (B), CEI (B), CVS (B), DLTR (B), DISH (?), ENZN (B), FLR (A), FLYI  (?), FTO (B), GMST (A), GSF (?), HRP (B), ICOS (?), JNY (?), MFE (4:30 pm ET), MCK (A), NEW (B), PXP (?), PPL (?), PRM (B), ROIAK (B), RRI (B), RRD (B), TSG (B), SGMS (A), SINA (A), SUN (B), SCON (A), G (B), PMI (?), THE (B), TXU (B), VRX (?), VPI (A), WPI (A), WMB (B)
May 06: ASTM (?), NOV (B), OATS (B)
May 09: AL (?), CRAY (?), DCEL (A), DYN (B), FSH (A), FTI (A), GNTA (?), IIP (?), MEDX (?), PCLN (A), PVX (B), SONS (?), TSO (?)
May 10: ANR (B), ASYT (A), CE (?), CQB (B), CSCO (A), EAGL (B), KFX (?), MDG (A), MSSN (B), MYGN (B), NPSP (?), NTLI (02:00 am ET), SRP (B), MAY (?)

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.