Good day! The market had a rather mixed day on Friday. For the most part it was the range day that we had been looking for heading into the session. It didn't start out that way, however. The session began with a strong continuation of the selling that kicked off the prior day after the Philly Fed report alarmed investors by revealing the first monthly decline in manufacturing in the Philadelphia region since April 2003. The selling was choppy with a lot of overlap on the 15 minute charts, much like the previous day, but it was steady, holding the downtrend into the 10:45 and 11:00 ET reversal periods.

The selling abated into mid-day. The choppier type of trading that persisted throughout Thursday's session continued, however, with a correction off lows into noon and then a slightly lower low in the Nasdaq and Dow Jones Ind. Ave. at 12:30 ET. The prior lows in the S&P 500 held and the comparable pace in the selling in that and the Dow helped instigate the trading range that would hold throughout the remainder of the day.

After bouncing back into the zone of the prior highs on the 5 minute charts around 13:00 ET, the volume dropped off quite a bit. The indices began to slide lower along the 15 minute 20 simple moving average. When this happens and the market holds the upper 50% of the prior rally, then the market will typically see strong breakouts to the upside. This is particularly true with a volume decline along the 15 minute resistance. The retracement was too great this time around, however, and the market made it back into the zone of the day's lows before the pace on the 1-2 minute charts was able to turn back around.

Following the 15:00 ET reversal period, the 15 minute 20 sma finally broke, but the extent of the selling provided greater strength to the prior highs that first began serving as resistance around 10:15 ET. Even though the pace on this final upswing was the strongest move in that direction all day, there wasn't enough time left in the session for the market to build up enough steam to break through that zone.

Friday ended with a loss of 3.25 points in the S&P 500 ($SPX, -0.2%), 18.82 points in the Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX, -0.8%), and 25.13 points in the Dow Jones Ind. Ave. ($DJI, -0.2%). This took the week's totals to -0.4% in the S&P, -0.7% in the Nasdaq, and -0.5% in the Dow. The 10-yr Treasury note closed with a yield of 4.596%. Crude-oil futures lost more than 5% on the week. Gold futures, on the other hand, finally saw some recovery, up 2.1% for the week.

The slightly higher highs made in the indices and the change in upside pace in the market over this past week has opened the door for further corrective action on the weekly and monthly time frames. The Dow and S&Ps in particular are at significant resistance from the highs made late April/early May of this year. Even if they were able to push a little higher to allow the Nasdaq to pull up a bit more, they are at imminent danger for a notable pullback on those larger time frames. It is typical for the market to begin such moves in the month of October, which is quickly approaching, so I would use a great deal of discretion on buying new stocks for swing and position trades at this time. This week also brings with it another slew of economic data, along with warnings season for this quarter's earnings.

Economic Reports and Events
Sept. 25: Existing Home Sales for Aug. (10:00 am)
Sept. 26: Consumer Confidence for Sep. (10:00 am)
Sept. 27: Durable Orders for Aug. (8:30 am), New Home Sales for Aug. (10:00 am), Crude Inventories 9/22 (10:30 am)
Sept. 28: Chain Deflator-Final. Q2 and GDP-Final. Q2 (8:30 am), Initial Claims 9/23 (8:30 am), Aug. Help-Wanted Index (10:00 am)
Sept. 29: Personal Income and Personal Spending for Aug. (8:30 am), Sept. Michigan Sentiment-Rev. (9:50 am), Sept. Chicago PMI (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 stock's earnings date before holding a position overnight.
Sept. 25: JLG, WAG
Sept. 26: DBRN, FUL, JBL, LEN, PAYX, RHAT, WOR
Sept. 27: MKC
Sept. 28: ACN, FDO, RIMM, TXI, TIBX
Sept. 29: GPN
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.