NASDAQ futures are coming into Monday with a slight gap up after an overnight session featuring elevated range and volume. Price was working higher for the first several hours of Globex, making a new record high around 8pm and continuing higher until finding sellers around 2am. Said responsive sellers stepped in ahead of 12,100, and since then we’ve fallen back into last Friday’s range. As we approach cash open, price is hovering up near Friday’s high.
On the economic calendar today we have 3- and 6-month T-bill auctions at 11:30am.
Last week equity markets were mostly strong. All major indices spent the majority of the last full week of August rallying, especially from Tuesday-to-Wednesday. The Russell 2000 lagged a bit and is pinned right along its composite volume point of control; flagging, coiling, building energy for the next move. The last week performance of each major index is shown below:
On Friday the NASDAQ printed a normal variation down. The day began with a slight gap up inside Thursday’s range. The opening auction was tight but sellers managed to close the overnight gap within the first half hour. The rest of the morning was spent churning along the midpoint before sellers stepped in after lunch and pressed us range extension down. Sellers hardly probed into the lower half of Thursday’s range before discovering a bid. We then spent the rest of the day slowly rotating higher, first up through the midpoint and eventually closing above it.
Heading into today my primary expectation is for buyers to press away from the Friday high 12,018.25 setting up a run through overnight high 12,091.75. Look for sellers just above at 12,100 and for two way trade to ensue.
Hypo 2 stronger buyers trade up to 12,167.50 before two way trade ensues.
Hypo 3 sellers work into the overnight inventory and close the gap down to 11,988. Sellers continue lower, down through overnight low 11,980 targeting the micro-composite POC at 11,964.25.
Levels:
Volume profiles, gaps and measured moves:
