Good day! After surging higher on Tuesday, the major indices had difficulty going anywhere for about two days. Narrow trading and congestion continued into Thursday morning after the market bounced off the lower end of the trading range and then based along the highs of the day while volume continued to decline into noon. The market did finally manage to get moving into the afternoon though, popping into the 12:00 ET correction period with a slight influx of volume. This took the indices to new highs on the week even though many market players had already taken off ahead of the three-day weekend. 

After the mid-day surge, the market pulled back gradually into the 13:00 ET correction period, again on declining volume. This time the pullback was about 50% of the previous upside move with the 5 minute 20 sma serving as support. The result was that it took that index a bit more time to again make it back to new highs, while the stronger S&P 500 bounced to new highs at 13:30 ET. It took a move out of 14:00 ET, however, before the Nasdaq made new highs. Volume continued to remain light though, as the three-day weekend quickly approached.

In the final 90 minutes of trading the indices swapped places. The Nasdaq took over as the relative strength leader while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average took a back seat. Although all three indices corrected off late afternoon highs beginning at about 14:30 ET, the Nasdaq managed to pop strongly higher into the final fifteen minutes of trading. The end result on the day was a 30.15 point gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI), a 12.65 point gain in the Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX), and a 4.39 point gain in the S&P 500 ($SPX).







After the strength heading into the holiday, the upside continued in the afterhours trading on Friday when the market headed higher following the 8:30 ET jobs data. U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by 180,000 last month, beating expectations, while the unemployment rate slipped to 4.4% from 4.5% the previous month, tying the lowest level in about 6 years. The daily resistance on this action is the close on February 26th that was followed by the large downside the next day. This, as well as the larger resistance zone from the pre-gap congestion at highs, is going to be difficult to break without a larger daily correction.

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.