Good day! After moving steadily higher on increased volume throughout the week, the slowdown in upside that began on Wednesday resulted in a range-bound market on Thursday. The market will almost never make it past three days of upside while holding the 15 minute 20 simple moving average support, so it didn't take much to break that level out of the open. It became immediately noticeable that the choppy trading that began in the last 30 minutes of the day on Wednesday was bent on continuing into Thursday.

Volume was still on the stronger side at the beginning of the session. This dropped off as the intraday range failed to manifest a trend channel break. The Nasdaq Composite managed to hold up the most initially since it was less extended heading into the day. Both the Dow Jones Ind. Ave. and S&P 500 managed to make it back into the lows of the last 30 minutes on Wednesday, but only the Nasdaq was able to establish new highs on the week when it spiked into 11:30 ET.

I found it very difficult to develop a bias in favor of either the bulls or the bears on Thursday. The upside into the afternoon was much more gradual than is ideal for a continuation pattern, but the overall selling was not as weak as usual on downside moves intraday either. Support and resistance levels still held very well, but the setups in the E-Minis, for example, had too much overlap from bar to bar to justify taking much risk. The only move I took an interest in was the one in the Nasdaq that nearly mirrored the setup in the Nasdaq the afternoon before. The indices were gradually moving higher into 14:30 ET. The Nasdaq was hugging its 15 minute 20 sma support on lighter volume. The follow-through was also comparable, with an initial descent and then another recovery into the close.

The market as a whole was never able to break out of is congestion by the close. The Dow Jones Ind. Ave. fell 15.93 points, the S&P 500 lost 1.79 points and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.06 points. I am not looking for much on Friday either. There are a few data releases due out, mainly before the open, but it would be helpful for the bulls if the indices had a few days of corrective activity in order to be able to mount a decent offensive against the bears. The highs made earlier in the year in the Dow will be significant resistance.

Economic Reports and Events
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. 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.