Futures dipped 11 points below the SMA10 overnight, only to be rescued by retail sales data that beat expectations (+1.6% vs 1.0%)The beat was primarily attributable to soaring gasoline prices and auto sales — a double-edged sword, of course, from an inflation standpoint.The only chart that continues to matter, however is VIX.  It has been threatening to break trend for several week, but has managed to hold up fairly well considering the market’s meltup.continued for members…

Going around the horn…SPX closed 18 points below recent highs, so that shall be our bogey for this rally.

RB and CL continue to shuffle sideways – with both still trading below highs made on the 9th-10th but well above their SMA200s.

USDJPY is also holding above its SMA200 The dollar is benefiting from USDJPY and EURUSD this morning. We’ve seen a number of pops and drop over the past couple of weeks.  I see nothing in the tea leaves that points to a different outcome today.

UPDATE:  3:55 PM

SPX closed higher, but there was little headway for bears or bulls — mostly damage control with the same old pop, drop and recovery we’ve seen almost every day.

This is a terrible environment for swing trading – great for scalping with drops from the pre-opening ramps of 12, 14, 17, 34 and 17 points this week.It definitely still feels like it’s a delaying strategy, though it’s unclear what the objective is.  CL and USDJPY and VIX have all kinds of opportunities to push stocks to new highs but have avoided doing so.