Good morning! Wednesday was a busy day for the market, but the Dow Jones Ind. Ave. and S&P 500 moved very little. The Dow ($INDU) lost 5.44 points, while the S&Ps fell 1.28 point. The Nasdaq Composite did have a bit harder time, showing a lot of relative weakness and closing lower by 18.36 points.

The day began with a bit of a downside gap. The producer price index showed an unexpected jump in wholesale inflation for last month. December industrial production, however, did help ease the selling somewhat. The more mild gaps can fill easily within the first 30 minutes and this was true on Wednesday as well. The market popped quickly at 10:00 ET and within a few minutes it closed the gap, which then served as resistance that ended up holding throughout the remainder of the morning.

Within the morning trading range, the upside momentum was stronger than the downside, even though the Nasdaq base was along 15 minute lows. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were able to break the range higher with the noon reversal period. The pop took the Dow to new all-time highs. That momentum was not enough to break the Nasdaq through its highs though. The morning gap filled, but that was it. That momentum began to turn over in the early afternoon. The S&Ps and Dow made a slightly higher high into the 13:00 ET reversal period. That reversal period also held perfectly.

The market popped a bit, namely in the S&P and Dow again, with the 14:00 Fed. Beige Book, but after that the 5 minute Avalanches that had been forming in the Dow and S&P ahead of that report finally broke lower. The Nasdaq also confirmed with a break in the lows of its range. The selling continued until just after 15:00 ET. At that point the S&P 500 hit its 5 minute 200 sma and lower trend channel, the Dow hit the prior 15 minute lows, and the Nasdaq hit its 15 minute 200 sma. With so many support levels hitting at once, the market held them for the last 45 minutes.

I don't have much of a change of bias heading into Thursday than I have had so far this week. The added volatility is going to continue to make it necessary to have some added patience, but so far even though I've found fewer core patterns that fit my methodology, I am still finding some really great setups like in TRMP, CIT and BLKB on Wednesday. There is even more news due out on Thursday than on any day so far this week, so I'll be checking out the stocks with the greatest news play as well as the sympathy stocks for those with top momentum to focus on intraday. I am not as interested in new swing or position trades at this time.

Economic Reports and Events This Week
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: NY Empire State Index for Jan. (8:30 am)
Wednesday: Core PPI, PPI for Dec. (8:30 am), Net Foreign Purchases for Nov. (9:00 am), Capacity Utilization and Industrial Production for Dec. (9:15 am), Crude Inventories 1/12 (10:30 am), Fed's Beige Book (2:00 pm)
Thursday: Building Permits, Core CPI, CPI, and Housing Starts for Dec. (8:30 am), Initial Claims 1/12 (8:30 am), Leading Indicators for Dec. (10:00 am), Philadelphia Fed. for Jan. (12:00 pm)
Friday: Mich. Sentiment-Prel. for Jan. (10:00 am)

Key Earnings Announcements This Week
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: AMTD, CBH, CBSH, FRX, INVX, MI, MNRO, PVTB, USB, WFC, FUL, INTC, LLTC, TSS, and TRMK
Wednesday: APH, AMR, ASML, CIT, FCX, JPM, LEN, MEL, NTRS, PH, PGR, LUV, STT, WIT, SNV, DOX, AAPL, CLC, FHN, IBKC, LRCX, NVEC, SOV, and WM
Thursday: AIT, BK, BBT, BG, CHZ, CMA, CAL, FITB, HOG, HBAN, IGT, JEF, NITE, LOGI, MMR, VIVO, MER, NVS, PPG, SLM, SMTS, UNH, USAP, CAMD, COF, CREL, CREE, DGII, ETFC, FNB, IBM, ICOS, MOLX, PNFP, and XLNX
Friday: ACO, C, FAST, GE, JCI, KEY, MOT, JNC, RF, SAY, SLB, STI, and WL
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance and Briefing.com. 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.