Last night, the S&P 500 futures opened two ticks higher at 1975.00 before falling early in the globex session making a low down at 1871.25 and proceeded to rally in the Asian and European sessions making a high of 1900.25, up more than 25 handles from Tuesday’s close
At the regular trading hours open in the U.S. the index futures opened at 1896.00 up 21 handles on the day and just 4 handles off the overnight high and rallied higher early making a morning high of 1907.00, up 41 handles from Tuesday’s low before coming off some during the late morning trade making a low of 1886.50 down more than 20 handles from the regular-trading-session high. Heading into the lunch hour the equity index futures began to bounce off the lows and going into the last hour of the cash session the MiM (market-imbalance-meter) show a heavy buy side of excess of $1 billion for the MOC (market-on-close). Futures maintained the rally trading above 1910.00 late in the session before settling at 1902.75 up 1.50% on the day.
Heard across the newswires today was the Fed’s Yellen, Dudley and Bullard at different times throughout the day with the consensus seeming to be that the anticipation remains for a rate hike at some point this year. However there are mixed opinions concerning market volatility. Today’s trade also marked the end of the third quarter one of the few quarters in recent years to close lower as funds have been reported to be heavily short there was no surprise to see book squaring favoring the buy side as the month came to an end.
Heading into tomorrow is a somewhat heavier economic calendar both in the U.S. and overseas as many eyes will be on the Chinese PMI during the Asian session. Tomorrow will mark the beginning of the final quarter of the year and what is the most bullish quarter of the historic calendar, and with NFP (non-farm payroll) coming up Friday and earnings season next week the final quarter of the year should remain newsworthy.
Seen above is a screenshot of a portion from today’s Market-Imbalance-Meter (MIM) showing the time, overall market imbalance on the top and the price of the S&P 500 index on the bottom. MIM traders have the inside track on the closing auction.
Seen Today In The IM Pro Trading Room:
Chicagostock ( 9:28:41 AM ): Long 1895.75
Chicagostock ( 9:38:42 AM ): Sold 1901.75, Flat
Floor Pivots For Tomorrow’s RTH E-mini
R3 1948.00
R2 1924.00
R1 1913.00
PP 1900.00
S1 1889.50
S2 187.600
S3 1852.00