Good day! Going into Thursday, much of the intraday action was still pointing higher. The NASDAQ even gapped up at the open, rallying out of the open to put in an equal move as compared to the move out of the previous morning on the 15 minute charts. At that point the index came smack into resistance from the highs of the range over the prior several days. The Dow Jones Ind. Ave. didn't have such luck, however, and opened slightly lower. From that point it sold off throughout the morning, only coming into support with the 11:00 ET reversal period when the NASDAQ came into the lows from the prior afternoon and the SP500 hit its 15 minute 200 sma.

The market rounded off nicely into mid-day, leading to a strong upside move over noon with some decent intraday breakouts in stocks that showed up on the morning gainers lists. This move was stronger than I expected since the market was favor selling, but the NASDAQ and SP500 both made new highs on the day. Nevertheless, the Dow still floundered. It couldn't even break above its 15 minute 20 and 200 sma resistance. As all the resistance came together over noon, the market began to turn over.

The pace on the afternoon selling was pretty gradual to begin with. The SP500 and Dow both based along support into the 13:00 ET reversal period and this created an Avalanche in the form of a Reverse Cup with Handle on the 5 minute charts going into that strong reversal zone. The follow through on the setup was typical to begin with, stalling after it put in an equal move as the Dow came back into morning lows. From that point on the upside pace in the market remained very weak and when selling continued into 13:30 ET the pace quickly increased, creating an exhaustion move on the 5 minute charts as the NASDAQ came into prior lows. It continued until volume spiked just ahead of the 14:00 ET reversal period.

Given the extent of the selling, which broke from the normal move of the prior several days, I figured things would slow down for the remainder of the day. A strong bounce was unlikely, but a bear flag into a 2B low was still possible. The flag broke lower going into the 5 minute 20 sma resistance, but after slowing into 15:00 ET the market was unable to trigger a 2B pivot and the selling simply slowed down and fell into a bit of a choppy range into the close instead of correcting through more of a bounce or price correction.

The move on Thursday was the largest one day move we have seen in many weeks. It flushed out a lot of the bulls still hanging on and hoping for a bit more upside. The fact that we saw so few decent swingtrade setups, which allowed me to be a lot more cautious, really helped prevent getting stuck facing the wrong way into the afternoon. Hopefully this breaks the trend over the last 6 weeks and we start to see more conviction on intraday action going into next week. I think that is pretty likely and plan on easing up and looking to be a bit more aggressive again, as well as putting a bit more focus on futures in my own trading once more.

Updates: AAP from the $51.88 zone on the 4/25 hit new highs of $65.37. Trailing stop initiated for position trades. Some hit. CI triggered on 5/26 with the break of $97.55 and has highs of $107.79. Targets hit and trailing stops now initiated. SLXP broke out on 6/15 over $18.13. It has highs of $18.91. The 15 minute 200 sma is support I want to see hold.

Economic Reports and Events
June 24: Durable Orders for May (8:30 am), New Home Sales for May (10:00 am)
June 27: -
June 28: Consumer Confidence for Jun (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
June 24: -
June 27: NKE (B), PAYX (A), WAG (?)
June 28: APOL (B), EMMS (B)

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.