It was another narrow trading range on Globex for the S&P 500 futures Wednesday night, 2506.25 to 2501.50, with 144,000 contracts traded. On yesterday’s 8:30 CT futures open the S&P 500 futures (ESZ17:CME) opened at 2504,00, rallied up to 2505.00, and then got hit by a few early sell programs that knocked the futures down to an early low at 2496.75. After the low, the ES traded back to 2500.00, then sold off and made a new low by 1 tic 2469.50 before rallying up to 2500.50, and then eventually up to 2503.25.
It’s been an amazing run with new highs almost everyday for the last two weeks. The question is, are that markets stalling? When I spoke to the PitBull we both agreed that it looks like the markets are going back up, and he also said the ES could rally into the end of the month. With the VIX trading back under 10, it seems like there is very little ‘fear factor’ in the markets. Despite all the catastrophe from Texas, Florida, the caribbean and North Korean saber rattling, the markets do not seem to want to go down.
Going into the close, the ES sold off down to 2500.50, rallied back up to 2503.00, and then dropped down to 2499.00 as the MiM started showing over $400 million for sale. But, in came several big buy imbalances, and at 2:37 the ES traded back up to 2502.50 as the MiM went to $700 million for sale. There were a few good trades, selling after the open and buying weakness, but after the sell off and rally the ES traded in a 2 to 3 handle range. At 2:45 the actual NYSE MOC came out to sell $1.171 billion, and the ES dropped back down to the 2489.25 area at before bouncing back up to 2501.75 going into the 3:15 futures close.
In the end the S&P 500 futures (ESZ17:CME) settled at 2501.00, down -4.25 handles, or -0.17%, the Dow Jones futures (YMZ17:CBT) settled at 22333, down -43 points, or -0.19%, and the Nasdaq 100 futures (NQZ17:CME) settled at 5945.25, down -33.25 points, or -0.56%.
While You Were Sleeping
Overnight, equity markets in Asia closed mostly lower, with the Hang Seng leading the move down at -0.82%. Meanwhile, in Europe, most majors are trading higher this morning.
In the U.S., the S&P 500 futures opened last night’s globex session at 2500.75, and immediately printed the overnight high at 2501.00. From there, the ES traded down to 2492.00 at 8:30pm CT before starting a slow grind back up. As of 7:10am CT, the last print in the ES is 2495.75, down -5.25 handles, with 166k contracts traded.
In Asia, 7 out of 11 markets closed lower (Shanghai -0.15%), and in Europe 9 out of 12 markets are trading higher this morning (FTSE +0.10%).
Today’s economic includes PMI Composite Flash (9:45 a.m. ET), Atlanta Fed Business Inflation Expectations (10:00 a.m. ET), Baker-Hughes Rig Count (1:00 p.m. ET); Fedspeak — John Williams Speaks (6:00 a.m. ET), Esther George Speaks (9:30 a.m. ET), and Robert Kaplan Speaks (1:30 p.m. ET).
Lots of Fed Speak
Our View: The ES is way overdue for a pullback, but it just won’t give up. $1.1bil for sale on the close and the ES sells off a little, and then rallies back up above 2501.00 in the final minutes. Today there are three fed governors speaking. Our view is to sell the early rallies and buy weakness, that has been the basic pattern. The ES has to get above 2504 to continue up, and if the ES does sell off, then 2489 is big support.
