NASDAQ futures are gap down heading into Monday trade after an overnight session featuring normal range and volume. Price worked lower on a balanced session, with most of the downward action coming in the form of a globex gap when trade was opened at 6pm Sunday evening. A bit more selling came in just after 8:30am, just after the Personal Consumption Expenditure data came out in-line with expectations.
Also on the economic docket today we have Pending Home Sales at 10am, and at 11:30am the US Treasury is auctioning off both 3- and 6-month T-bills, $34 and and $28 billion dollar’s worth respectively.
There are key earnings out this week from NASDAQ-moving companies including Apple Tuesday after-market-close (AMC), Facebook Wednesday AMC, and Amazon Thursday AMC.
There is and FOMC rate decision Wednesday, and Non-farm Payroll Friday. This is a busy week.
Last week price worked higher across all major US indices. We had a down Monday that caught a responsive bid and worked higher by midday. This set up a trend day Tuesday, and then a big gap up Wednesday. We spent the rest of the week marking time. The performance of each major index can be seen below:
On Friday the NASDASQ printed a normal variation down. After opening gap up and briefly trading to a new high, price worked lower in the morning, 1-ticked the initial balance low just after 10:30am then resolved the week with side-ways action, ramping higher near end-of-day.
Heading into today my primary expectation is for sellers to press off the open, trading down through overnight low 5140.25 to test 5131.75. Buyers show up here and two way trade ensues.
Hypo 2 buyers work into the overnight inventory and close the gap up to 5162. While doing so they take out overnight high 5160.50. Look for sellers right around 5162 and two way trade to ensue.
Hypo 3 strong sellers sustain trade below 5130 setting up a test below the Wednesday low 5123.50. Look for buyers down at 5110.75 and two way trade to ensue.
Hypo 4 strong buyers sustain trade above 5161.25 setting up a test of current swing high 5167.50. Stretch target is 5193.75.
Levels:
Volume profiles, gaps, and measured moves:
