Good morning! The market had one of its narrowest range days in weeks on Thursday. The session began modestly, heading somewhat higher early on in the session. Although the Nasdaq Composite led the rally on Wednesday afternoon, it was the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average that held the lead on Thursday. The Nasdaq kept forming traps at new intraday highs, breaking by a hair and then falling back, but the S&Ps and Dow both managed several strong continuation patterns until the 10:134 ET correction period. This third move into highs was the last one of the morning and the market began to correct off those levels heading into noon. This came right after the S&Ps had ran into their 15 minute 200 simple moving average resistance.

The market was quite choppy over noon. Even though it headed lower, it did so with a great deal of hesitation and a lot of back stepping before the Nasdaq came back into its morning lows and price support. This corresponded to its 15 minute 20 sma support, whose zone also hit in the S&P 500 and Dow. The indices slowed at this level, but then began to bounce with the 12:00 ET reversal period. The buying was more steady than the decline, taking back the earlier losses in a shorter period of time, but the momentum was not significantly above average, so the earlier highs held well.

The indices chopped around for about 30 minutes at the early afternoon highs and then the sellers picked up momentum, returning the indices back into the lows of the session once again. It was stronger than the prior two back and forth moves in the larger 15 minute range, but when support hit at about 13:30 ET the market still managed to pop quickly off those lows. This correction took the market back into the 5 minute 20 sma resistance, where the volume dropped as the indices hugged the resistance and formed a 5 minute Phoenix buy pattern despite the weaker 15 minute pace. The move didn't last long, however, and the market fell flag for the last 90 minutes of the session.

The gains by the end of the session were modest compared to the wider swing so far this week. The Dow ($DJI) rose 26.28 points (+0.2%). The S&P 500 ($SPX) climbed 5.11 points (+0.4%). The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) also moved higher, adding 6.96 points, or +0.3%. Top gainers were the banks and broker dealers. The reversal off Wednesday's lows changed the momentum within this recent range and now the market is smack in the middle of it. The momentum bias is currently more bullish within the range, but not significantly so. When looking at the 15 minute charts, the overall upside pace is still rather slow compared to the early afternoon selling. We should see a larger range though to create a bit more activity on Friday.







Economic Reports and Events This Week
Friday:
8:30a.m. Feb Consumer Price Index. Previous: +0.2%.
8:30a.m. Feb Consumer Price Index, Ex-Food & Energy. Previous: +0.3%.
9:15a.m. Feb Industrial Production. Previous: -0.5%.
9:15a.m. Feb Capacity Utilization. Previous: 81.2%.
10:00a.m. Mid-Mar Reuters/U Of Mich Sentiment Index. Previous: 91.3.

Key Earnings Announcements This Week
Friday: ANN, KIRK
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. This list is not a complete list of earnings, so always double check your positions!

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.