on March 22, 2024

TGIF. Two-Way Price Action Is Expected

Powell talks early today

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Our View

Remember the old saying — Thank God It’s Friday? Well, that is how I feel about this.

I am going to keep it light today. The ES and NQ are riding a 22-week rally with some minor down weeks and dips along the way. At yesterday’s high, we were up 155 points from Friday’s 5167.75 low.

Can the ES go up? Of course it can, but I don’t think it will just go straight up without some drops/pullbacks. We saw that yesterday, as the S&P ran out of steam midday Thursday.

Just as a reminder, today is the Week 4 options expiration for March.

TGIF

Our Lean

Again, I’m keeping things short today.

There is no notable US economic data due up on Friday, but more Fedspeak is on the docket with Chair Powell taking part in the Fed Listens event, starting at 9 am ET. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr is making comments at noon and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic is talking at 4 pm ET.

Our Lean: I think there will be two-way price action. You can sell the early rallies and buy the pullbacks or just stay with the trend and buy the drops —- especially if the ES is 10 to 12 points under the VWAP.

Remember that strategy?

MrTopStep Levels:

How to use MTS levels

MiM and Daily Recap

After a big Fed day rip above ES 5300.00, the ES traded up to 5317.75 on Globex and opened Thursday’s regular session at 5315.00. After the open, the ES pulled back to 5310.25 at 9:36, traded up to 5321.50 at 9:42, sold off down to 5308.50 at 9:50, and then did a slow sideways-to-up back-and-fill that pushed the ES up to 5321.25 at 10:24. From there, it sold off down to 5312.75, made a new high by 1 tick at 5321.25 at 10:51 and then pulled back down to the 5311.50 level at 11:10.

For the next hour and twenty minutes, the ES stutter-stepped up to another new high at 5222.75 at 12:32 and then sold off down to 5301.50 at 2:43. After the low, the ES rallied back up to the VWAP at 5313.00 at 3:27, went into a slow drift down 5204.25 and traded 5306.75 as the 3:50 cash imbalance showed $1.5 billion to buy, dipped to 5300.00 and traded 5302.75 on the 4:00 cash close. After 4:00, the ES rallied up to 5309.00 and settled at 5307.50 on the 5:00 futures close, up 11.25 points or +0.21% on the day. The NQ settled at 18,579.75 up 38 points or +0.20% on Thursday.

In the end, the ES did make another new contract high for the year, but it was slow. In terms of the ES’s overall tone, it acted a little tired. In terms of the ES’s overall trade, volume was on the low side: 233k ES traded on Globex and 1.03 million on the day session for a total of 1.263 million contracts traded.