If you liked yesterday, you’ll probably love today. We’ve got it all: VIX being slammed down below the long-term channel bottom (for the 17th time in 10 weeks), WTI being ramped up past resistance, USDJPY that can’t hold a simple channel bottom.
The sheer determination to keep prices in the green is, no doubt, a nod to St. Paddy himself.
continued for members…
Going around the horn…
ES is trying very hard to turn green, even after breaking trend.
…while, USDJPY is still putting a damper on things.
SPX is in exactly the same situation as yesterday — not having put in any important backtests…
…despite CL’s ramping…
…and, VIX being forced back below the yellow channel bottom — not the mention the latest shorter-term rising channel (purple.)
In other words, it’s pretty much just like yesterday — with such an aversion to declines that the algos are working up a sweat, and there are no honest prices to be found.
If you’re looking for some direction, join the crowd. The potential remains for a meltup to new highs. But, at the moment, TPTB seem content to prevent any declines.
From a pure charting standpoint, the next direction should be down. The yellow channel top is now up to almost 2350, though the 1.618 remains fixed at 2335. But, that presumes VIX doesn’t get slammed below 10.6 and CL doesn’t top 50.
UPDATE: 10:03 AM
VIX just put a shot across the bow, plunging down to 10.78 as SPX started to dip below its SMA5 10, responding to USDJPY’s selling pressure. All things being equal, I continue to favor the downside, with the yellow channel top and an open gap down around 2350 being the strongest pulls. I remain nervously short.
UPDATE: 10:40 AM
UPDATE: 3:34 PM
We’re getting a little bit of a breakdown, with VIX pushing up above the red TL and SPX doing more than backtesting the broken white channel. I’d love to see ES break below the yellow channel line, but am not holding my breath. I think the next move is down, but I’ve been wrong about that several times over the past few months.
My overarching theme, however, remains the same: more downside for oil and especially gas, lower equity prices to backtest some important (now) support.
As always, only hold short this weekend if you can hedge or deal with the gap risk.
Comments
2 responses to “Happy Quad-Witching St. Patrick’s Day”
PW, since the FOMC meeting is done and rate hike is final for now, is there any reason for TPTB to suppress CL? Nobody expects another rate hike in April. The next possible rate hike, if any, is June. So, between now and May, they don’t need a low CL to show “little inflation”. Maybe in June before the FOMC, they will need the low CL. Just my thought and I can be wrong.
Hard to know for sure, of course. But, we’ve seen this past month how rates ticked higher on the recognition of a need for a Fed rate hike. Now we’re into March data, with numbers to be reported on Apr 14 and the next FOMC meeting on May 2-3. If they want to flatten out or reverse inflation growth, now is the time to take CL down further.