Good day! Wednesday was a mixed day for the market with a strong divergence between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 on one side and the Nasdaq Composite on the other. After gapping slightly lower into the open, the market quickly closed its gap. The Nasdaq continued its rally from the prior afternoon, making new highs on the week, but the S&Ps and Dow found it difficult to break the prior day's highs. The relative strength in the Nasdaq was short-lived, however, and the index was soon back to morning lows following a small Avalanche pattern on the 5 minute charts into 10:30 ET. The S&Ps also returned to morning lows, but the Dow held the upper half of the early morning range. This transposition of strength held until the last half hour of the day.

While the Nasdaq was struggling to make it past its morning highs at noon, the S&Ps and Dow were pushing strongly through that same resistance. It is unusual for the market to succeed in a fourth wave of buying in a trend whereby each of the correction periods are comparable in terms of time development. The result of this additional attempt on Wednesday was that the move was more muted than the prior three and nearly non-existent in the Nasdaq.

Volume began to dry up into the early afternoon. The Dow corrected gradually from the mid-day highs, while the Nasdaq retraced approximately 50% of its range on the day. When the 13:30 ET reversal period hit, the Dow was able to once more move to new intraday highs, but the Nasdaq was unable to find similar momentum and crept higher along its 15 minute 20 sma support. This made it easy prey for a downside flush. This descent came with the 15:00 ET reversal period and took the index back to mid-day lows. The Dow and S&Ps also experienced a strong correction off the highs, but the Nasdaq was able to bounce back into the close. This was made easier by the lesser exhaustion earlier in the session.

By the end of the day, the Dow Jones Ind. Ave. ($DJI) added a modest 45.23 points. The S&P 500 $SPX) posted a similar percentage move, rallying 4.96 points. The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) rose 11.85 points, the largest percentage gain of the three despite lagging throughout most of the day. Top gainers included BLK, LM, LEH, BTU, GS, BSC, GOOG, ISRG, ENER, BOBJ, and PRNL.  Among the losers were TAR, NTY, EK, NURO, and CRME. In the Nasdaq, that 200 day sma remains as strong overhead resistance on the daily chart. Despite the correction for the last hour of the day on Thursday, there isn't yet a strong short setup under development, so I am still not very bearish at this time, although the risk is increasing now for a late day reversal and I am not going to be as aggressive on new swingtrade setups for the remainder of the week.

Economic Reports and Events
Sept. 14: Business Inventories for July (8:30 am), Export Prices ex-ag. and Import Prices ex-oil for Aug. (8:30 am), Initial Claims 9/9 (8:30 am), Retail Sales for Aug. (8:30 am)
Sept. 15: Core CPI and CPI for Aug. (8:30 am), NY Empire State Index for Sep. (8:30 am), Capacity Utilization and Industrial Production for Aug. (9:15 am), Mich. Sentiment-Prel. for Sep. (9:50 am)
Sept. 18: Current Account for Q2 (8:30 am), Net Foreign Purchases for July (9:00 am)
Sept. 19: Building Permits for Aug. (8:30 am), PPI and Core PPI for Aug. (8:30 am)
Sept. 20: Crude Inventories 9/15 (10:20 am), FOMC policy statement (2:15 pm)
Sept. 21: Leading Indicators for Aug. (10:00 am), Philadelphia Fed for Sep. (12:00 pm)
Sept. 22: -

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.
Sept. 14: ADBE, BSC, PIR, TEK
Sept. 15: -
Sept. 18: -
Sept. 19: AZO, CBRL, CHAP, CBK, ORCL, PRGS
Sept. 20: BBBY, BMET, KMX, CTAS, CC, CMTL, DRI, MS, XRTX
Sept. 21: COMS, COGN, CAG, FDX, GIS, NKE, PALM, RAD, SCHL
Sept. 22: -
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.