Focus Letter

Market Remains Indecisive Into the Fed

Good morning! With Tuesday's upcoming Fed meeting, the market has continued to chop back and forth intraday. The bullish bias we saw going into Thursday's close followed through nicely into Friday morning, but was not strong enough to sustain itself. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by only 9.68 points, at 11,279.97, while the S&P 500 rose only 1.28 points to 1,302.95. The Nasdaq Composite managed the best with a gain of 12.67 to close at 2,312.82, thanks to a strong tech sector.

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From the open, the Nasdaq took the lead with a small upside gap into the highs of the prior two days while the S&P 500 and Dow opened flat. The gap quickly closed in the first 30 minutes of the day, but once that gap support hit, along with the 5 minute 20 sma, the market began to rally. The move was sharp, taking both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 quickly into 15 minute 200 sma resistance. While this level has been considerably support and resistance intraday during the recent daily range, the market correctly only briefly before breaking through it into 10:30 ET.

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The pace began to slow on this second move, hitting prior S&P 500 highs and rounding off on the 1-2 minute charts with a small head and shoulders pattern on those time frames. The initial correction off highs began slowly, but after basing along the 5 minute 20 sma, the selling picked up. Volume remained light throughout the early afternoon, showing no sign of exhaustion. The S&P 500 rapidly broke the 5 minute 200 sma support, while the Nasdaq slid through its 15 minute 20 sma that had hit at the same time. It was only then that the indices started to see an increase in the volume, creating stronger support shortly after 13:00 as the market came into stronger support on the 15 minute charts.

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Despite room for additional selling, the market managed to hang onto the 15 minute support at prior lows and the lower trend channel and crept higher into the close. This likely was a result of the choppy trading throughout the week, creating a weak bias into the weekend. The last two and a half hours of the day were very sloppy, creating higher risk in the market overall. It would not surprise me to see the recent back and forth action continue into Monday ahead of this week's Fed meeting. While another rate hike is expected and currently priced in, market participants are eagerly awaiting any language that would indicate just how long this string of rising interest rates will continue.

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