Category: Market News, Research & Commentary

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF added +0.34% last week, while the VIX closed the week at 15.41, indicating an implied one day move range of +/- 0.97% & an implied one month move range of +/-4.45%.

This note was delayed due to holiday obligations over this past weekend, but will resume normal schedule (also, note that price labels are not included in these charts like normal, in a rush effort to get them all in-time to be relevant to Friday’s close).

Their RSI is relatively flat at 60.16, while their MACD is bullish, but also beginning to flatten after the week of relative consolidation.

Volumes were -8.91% lower than the prior year’s average (64,520,000 vs. 70,831,080), signaling a cooling off from weeks prior of heightened volume.

Monday opened the week up on a gap down, but was able to trudge higher throughout the session & despite closing below its daily high, SPY did manage to close higher than it opened.

Volume was higher than the previous Friday’s advancing session though, indicating that there was a little bit of profit taking from short-term gains.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher at $681.92 & floated just above the $680/share level, ultimately closing the day as a doji, indicating that there was a hint of uncertainty in the air & that market participants found that area to be a safe valuation for SPY.

Tuesday’s volumes were slightly higher than Monday’s, but still not indicative of any true change in sentiment, as outlined by the resulting candlestick.

Things got a little more optimistic on Wednesday, when SPY opened lower, tested in the sub-$680 range momentarily, before powering higher to close +0.35%, which managed to form a bullish engulfing pattern with the prior day’s doji.

However, what made the move more interesting is that it was the most bullish session of the week, yet occurred on the lightest volume, indicating that there was limited faith behind the move higher & there was still an air of extreme caution.

Thursday confirmed this when a gap higher open saw SPY retrace over halfway through Wednesday’s real-body range as short-term profit taking struck again, but the day managed to rally back to squeeze higher to close just below its opening price into a resulting dragonfly doji, but the volume behind all of the movement lacked conviction.

Friday the week closed down with a relatively flat open that made a run at the $690/share level, but again, short-term profit taking struck & the session wound up advancing only +0.19% & forming a gravestone doji on the highest volume of the week.

That paints a bleak outlook picture given that there was a bit of profit taking happening heading into the weekend, despite the day’s overall advance.

Heading into the new week, the upside story remains the same as last week’s note & many prior; in order to see a meaningful continued climb higher we will need to see more volume behind advancing sessions, with less profit taking being indicated by the upper shadows of candles such as Friday’s.

The consolidation case also remains similar, as SPY will likely oscillate around the 10 DMA, with any downside movement making it oscillated between the 10 & 50 DMA’s awaiting an upside/downside catalyst, such as Wednesday’s FOMC decision, or earnings reports such as Oracle’s, which is also Wednesday (see The Week Ahead below).

To the downside, the table below can be useful to assess volume sentiment at their support levels using data from the past ~3 years, but if the 10 DMA’s support breaks down, all eyes should go to the 50 DMA for support.

In the event that that breaks down, the $661.21/share level is the gatekeeper to back-to-back Seller oriented price zones, which could spell bigger trouble for SPY as the $653.17 & $650.85/share support levels reside in them, and further declines could follow their breakdown.

It is also worth considering that there may be a double top emerging, where the all-time high was unable to be broken through, triggering further declines.

SPY has support at the $684.96 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $680.49 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1) & $672.91/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1) price levels, with resistance at the $688.39 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $689.70/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF advanced +1.01%, as the tech heavy index fared the strongest of the four majors.

Their RSI is at 59.39 & flattening, but still climbing, while their MACD is bullish, but also signaling a potential flattening is on the horizon.

Volumes were +2.65% higher than the prior year’s average levels (48,804,000 vs. 47,542,360), which is presenting that market participants are treating the tech-heavy index with a wait & see attitude in the near-term.

Monday the week began similar to SPY’s, with a gap down open to $617.17 that managed to trudge higher throughout the session, but on the week’s lowest volumes, indicating that there was not strong sentiment coming from the bulls.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher, tested lower, but ultimately managed to power above the $620/share level & close higher, but the spinning top candle spelled a message of caution for market participants as uncertainty was in the air & the high level of volume for the week expresses short-term profits were taken.

Wednesday opened lower, but managed to turn higher after a brief retrace towards Tuesday’s low, and the close was +0.24% day-over-day, a true slow & steady approach to advancing higher.

Thursday opened on a gap higher, but bears rushed in to force the day lower, taking profits & forcing a declining day that temporarily broke below the $620/share level, but bulls managed to force prices higher to close down only -0.09% on the day.

However, the candle formed a hanging man in the wake of the advancing sessions higher, indicating bearishness began creeping steadily into the market & folks were becoming cautious.

Friday the week wound down with another ominous note, as a shooting star candle emerged on what was another highervolume session for the week, and despite it resulting in a day-over-day gain, the upper shadow indicates that market participants wanted to take their ball & begin heading home.

The upside case heading into a new week will require more sustainable elevated advancing volume levels, as well as less days like Friday where a strong upper shadow indicates that there was a loss of upside appetite, as QQQ is still near its all-time high.

The consolidation case is also similar to last week’s, where QQQ may straddle the 10 DMA & in the event of a slight downside move begin to oscillate between it & the 50 DMA, while awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

The downside case is also similar week-over-week, as QQQ did not climb incredibly higher.

If the 10 DMA breaks down, look to the 50 DMA for support & should that break down there may be trouble brewing, as the $598.67 next support level resides in a price zone that is histoically Seller-centric over the past year & while the next support level ($590.13/share) resides in a Buyer zone, in the event of a breakdown the following Seller zone leads to the $580.74/share support level.

That will need to hold up to avoid seeing further declines for QQQ.

QQQ has support at the $624.86 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $618.10 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1) & $611.70/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1) price levels, with resistance at the $628.92 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $637.01/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF climbed +0.81% last week, having the second strongest week of ht major index ETFs.

Their RSI is heading down after advancing all week following Friday’s profit taking session that could not break above its all-time high set the day before, and their MACD is bullish & extending higher but signaling signs of exhaustion.

Volumes were +2.4% higher than the prior year’s average (35,780,000 vs. 34,940,200), which is not indicative of any particularly strong sentiment, given that the volumes of the previous year have been better than the prior year, but still lackluster compared to year’s prior.

Monday began IWM’s week on decent volume, but a gap down & gravestone doji, which normally indicates impending weakness.

However Tuesday opened on a gap up, but doubled down on the weak sentiment as it formed a bearish engulfing pattern with Monday’s candle, with the only point of doubt behind that indication was that it was on the week’s weakest volume.

Sure enough, Wednesday managed to open higher & take a run up towards the $250/share level, but was stopped just short; the volume behind the move, much like Tuesday’s was unconvincing in terms of long-term strength behind it.

Thursday opened slightly lower, but managed to continue the squeeze higher & rally its way up to a new all-time high (which disproved what we’d published last week re: IWM’s upside case, temporarily, but again, note the “squeeze”).

Friday confirmed the right to believe that this was not a strong move, as a lower open led to a brief rally that was unable to break above the new all-time high set on Thursday, which then led to a severe bout of profit taking on the week’s second highest volume.

Between the goal-line stand at $252.66/share back-to-back & the day’s bearish harami forming candle do not inspire much in terms of confidence in the near-term & hint at caution being taken by market participants.

With that said, the upside case continues on the same like all the other three majors, to see continued rallying higher there will need to be an uptick in volume, indicating that market participants are confident in the small cap index (and broader markets as a whole).

The consolidation case now is set to a new range within the range of Wednesday & Thursday’s candles, awaiting the arrival of the 10 DMA, as well as an upside or downside catalyst.

The downside case for IWM now becomes tricky as they’ve managed new all-time highs & are well above any historic Seller zones from the past 2-3 years.

They also have a nice potential support zone from the consolidation ranges of the past few months, as well as the 10 & 50 DMA’s there for support.

The $237.56/5 support levels & the $236.27/share support levels are areas to focus on though, as any breakdown that leads to those levels now leaves IWM on a balance beam above a historic Seller zone that contains no support levels, and may lead to larger declines from there.

Similar to SPY, a double top and or bearish head & shoulders pattern could be emerging over the coming month, which should be accounted for when assessing IWM’s strength/weakness.

IWM has support at the $248.48 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $247.50 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $246.38 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $243.96/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) price levels, with resistance at the $252.66/share (All-Time High, 2x Touch-Point, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF gained +0.6% for the week, as the blue chip index was out of favor, beating only the S&P 500 for the week.

Their RSI has flattened, sitting at 60.93, while their MACD is still bullish, but signaling signs of exhaustion.

Volumes were +16.47% higher than the prior year’s average (4,846,000 vs. 4,160,560), which does not necessarily paint a rosy picture given the daily distribution & the week’s performance.

Monday kicked off on a gap down, which attempted to run higher, but was stalled out when bears came rushing in to take profits & the day resulted in an inverted hammer candle, with volumes on the lower side of the week.

Tuesday opened higher, but spent the day straddling the $475/share level, forming a spinning top candle around it, indicating that there was uncertainty in the air.

Wednesday opened lower, but a surge of volume (highest of the week) was able to push DIA higher towards the $480/share level, but it closed the day justshot of it after temporarily breaking above it.

Thursday opened higher, tested higher, but was swiftly rejected & closed the day forming a doji star & signaled that folks were truly on the fence about the blue chip index, as also indicated by the low volume.

Friday confirmed teh bearish sentiment, opening lower, but testing higher & closing up +0.2% on the day, but the upper shadows of Thursday & Friday said DIA was running on fumes.

Heading into the week, the upside case remains the same, an increase in advancing volume is required to keep rallying to chase the all-time high.

Consolidation comes in the form of finding a range between Friday’s close & Wednesday’s low, while we await the 10 DMA to arrive & DIA will either oscillate around it & or an upside/downside catalyst will take it in a direction.

To the downside, should the 10 DMA be broken down through, the 50 DMA will likely be the next target of DIA.

Should that break down, there is downward momentum that may break down the $464.28/share level, leaving the $457.13/share level as the gatekeeper to the $452-455.99/share zone, which is Seller oriented & contains their next support levels, which could bring focus to the $447.99/share level, as well as the long-term trendline, the 200 Day moving average which lurks just below it.

DIA has support at the $479.79 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $475.17 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $469.63 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $468.90/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels, with resistance at the $481.93 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $483.79/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

There are no major economic data releases set for Monday.

Monday evening brings earnings reports from Compass Minerals, Phreesia & Toll Brothers after the session’s close.

Tuesday morning brings us NFIB Optimism Index data at 6 am, before Job Openings (delayed report) at 10 am.

Academy of Sports + Outdoors, AutoZone, Caleres, Campbell Soup, Core & Main, Ferguson, G-III Apparel, Korn/Ferry, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet & SailPoint all report earnings before Tuesday’s opening bell, followed by AeroVironment, Braze, Casey’s General, Cracker Barrel, Dave & Buster’s & GameStop after the closing bell.  

Employment Cost Index (Delayed Report) data comes out at 8:30 am, before the highly anticipated FOMC Interest Rate Decision and Monthly U.S. Federal Budget at 2pm & Fed Chair Powell’s Press Conference at 2:30 pm.

Wednesday morning’s earnings reports include Chewy, Hello Group, Photronics & Uranium Energy, with Oracle, Adobe, NANO Nuclear Energy, Nordson, Oxford Industries, Planet Labs, Synopsys & Vail Resorts all scheduled to report following the session’s close.

Thursday morning brings us Initial Jobless Claims data at 8:30 am.

Ciena & Lovesac report earnings Thursday morning, followed by Broadcom, Costco, Lululemon Athletica & Netskope after the close of trading.

Fed Presidents Paulson & Hammack are both scheduled to speak at 8:30 am on Friday & there are no noteworthy earnings reports scheduled for the day.

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF gained +4.73% last week, while the VIX closed at 16.35, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.03%, and an implied one month move range of +/-4.73%.

Their RSI is trending towards overbought, currently at 59.1, while their MACD crossed the signal line bullishly on Friday, which will be something to keep an eye on heading into the new week.

Volumes were +16.06% higher than the prior year’s average (81,284,000 vs. 70,037,490), which shows some short-term resilience as each day of last week was an advancing session, however the waning enthusiasm levels at the end of the week paired with the gaps are cause for discomfort.

Monday began SPY’s week with a sign of strength at a test just above the $650/share level & charged higher to form a bullish harami pattern with Friday’s candle.

A note of caution was aired though based on the length of the upper & lower shadows on the day & the elevated volume likely reflected some intraday profit taking.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher & ran, getting up to near the 10 & 50 Day moving averages’ resistance and was able to temporarily break above them, but closed in-line with the levels.

Wednesday opened higher, but profits were taken near the 10 & 50 DMA recent intersection forcing SPY downward to break below the support of both moving averages temporarily, before market participants came roaring back to thrust SPY above both & to close above both levels.

It should be noted that Tuesday & Wednesday had the second & third highest volume levels, indicating that since MOnday enthusiasm levels began to wane.

Thursday is where things began to look dicey & unstable, as a gap up open was able to temporarily break above the $680/share level, but was forced lower to close at $679.68 & it became evident that there were bears entering the chat.

Thursday also featured some profits being taken following the run up of the week from the low of $650.85, but the inability to close above $680/share & the waning volume clearly showed that enthusiasm was leaving the building.

Friday featured another gap up, and issued a warning for the coming week, as the body of the day’s candle closed like a spinning top with no shadow on the top or bottom on the week’s lowest volume.

The shadow on the spinning top candles indicates that there is uncertainty & that there is a range of it, but with little-to-no shadow it appears more like complacency & a wait & see approach, which does not instill much confidence.

Looking ahead, the upside case requires SPY to take out the $684.96/share resistance level, which it didn’t even flirt with on Friday, which adds to the air of caution mentioned above.

Should that occur & we see strong advancing volume there is a chance at taking a run at the all-time high of $689.70/share.

The consolidation case focuses around filling the gaps of last week, before oscillating around the 10 & 50 Day moving averages awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

This week is relatively quiet on earnings & announcements, but employment data is coming out, as is missed PCE data which could potentially be market moving given how the Fed is watching both for policy clues & the most recent cut was attributed to the labor market.

To the downside, there are plenty of unfilled windows from last week that could see SPY be walked down to the week’s low of $650.85/share.

In the event that we see that SPY will have passed through two Seller dominated zones historically, then has $645-649.99 & $640-644.99/share for Buyer zones before reentering Seller territory for two more zones with only one support touchpoint within them.

Should this happen the 200 day moving average continues to creep higher & suddenly is within a reasonable distance, putting the long-term trend possibly in question.

SPY has support at the $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1), $670.44 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1), $667.87 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.55:1) & $661.21/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1) price levels, with resistance at the $684.96 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $689.70/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF added +5.73% last week, as investors were less weary of the tech-heavy index.

Their RSI is trending higher at 56.28, while their MACD crossed over the signal line bullishly on Friday, just like SPY’s.

Volumes were +22.18% higher than the prior year’s average (57,290,000 vs. 46,891,753), echoing the same sentiments as SPY in the section above.

Monday QQQ began similarly to SPY, opening in Friday’s range, breaking lower to test the $580/share level which held up, before testing higher & closing the day as a spinning top candle that formed a bullish harami with Friday’s session.

Like SPY, QQQ saw some profits taking intraday on Monday based on the high volume but limited actual growth for the day.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher & continued to climb to close in-line with the resistance of the 10 & 50 day moving averages which recently had crossed over bearishly.

Wednesday saw a retest through most of Tuesday’s candle’s real body, before QQQ advanced to temporarily break above the resistance of the 50 day moving average & close in-line with it.

Thursday is where the weakness began to show though, as a gap up open resulted in a spinning top on the second lowest volume of the week, indicating that there was not much confidence left in the market.

Friday confirmed this when another gap up open resulted in a box shaped candle with little-to-no upper/lower shadow on extremely weak volume, which does not indicate that there is much confidence in the tech heavy index heading into the weekend.

Similar to SPY, QQQ’s upside case revolves around breaking out above its next resistance levels ($624.86/share) & running higher in an attempt to break above their all-time high ~2% above it.

This will require sturdy increases in advancing volume to be sustainable & should be viewed with a cautious eye.

The consolidation case is also similar, as there are a handful of gaps from last week that need to be filled, leading QQQ down to oscillate around & in between the 10 & 50 day moving averages as we await an upside or downside catalyst.

The declining case for this week is focused on the open windows of last week being filled, as well as a breakdown of the support of the 10 & 50 DMAs.

Should that occur, the next support levels of $598.67 resides in a Seller dominated zone for the past year, then a Buyer zone & another Seller zone in the $585-589.99/share zone, making the downside point to watch this week $580.74, as that will become a key area to watch in the event of the aforementioned breakdowns.

QQQ has support at the $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1), $608.72 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.2:0*), $603.20 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.74:1) & $598.67/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.17:1) price levels, with resistance at the $624.86 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $637.01/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF advanced +8.57% last week, as investors piled into small cap names.

Their RSI is curling over at the 60-mark, while their MACD has been bullish since Thursday, as the small cap index had a very strong week.

Volumes were +36.10% higher than the prior year’s average (47,060,000 vs. 34,578,207), which will be cause to watch this week to see if it was actually a sustainable rotation into small caps, or if we see a violent rug pull & profits taken in the coming week.

The latter seems likely given that IWM moved in a manner that is much more similar than SPY & QQQ compared to the index’s normal behavior.

Monday opened just above the $230/share level, briefly tested lower, before storming higher, testing the resistance of the 10 DMA & closing just below it to form a bullish harami pattern with Friday’s candle.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher in-line with the 10 DMA, tested down towards the $235/share level, before catapulting higher to temporarily break above the $240/share level intraday.

The rally continued Wednesday, where the second highest volume of the week came on a gap up open that tested lower to the $240/share level, bounced off of it & ran higher to break out above the resistance of the 50 DMA.

Thursday opened on another gap higher above $245/share, tested slightly lower & ran off higher, but much like with SPY & QQQ the bears began to creep back into the market and the session’s upper shadow sobered up market participants who were thinking a big rally was getting underway.

Friday opened on another gap higher, but the low volume session produced a day-over-day gain of +0.59%, but the day’s candle resembled a miniature hanging man, indicating that there is hesitency/gloom on the horizon for IWM.

To the upside, Thursday’s high needs to be broken through firstly, but if enough volume prevails there is a shot at running for the all-time high; it will likely be more dependant on the moves of the other major 3 index ETFs in this article.

For our consolidation case, as gaps fill in & price heads back towards the 10 & 50 DMAs there will be oscillations in-between & around them while we await an upside or downside catalyst.

The downside will likely hinge a bit on the other major three indexes, but it begins with a breakdown of the support of the 10 & 50 day moving averages.

Should that happen, the $232-235.99/share level is a Seller zone historically, so all eyes then should be directed to $236.27/share & $228.90/share, the latter of which has two touch-points on the past year’s chart.

IWM has support at the $248.48 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $246.38 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $243.15 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) & $240.86/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) price levels, with resistance at the $248.82 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $252.77/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF gained +4.17% for the week, as the blue chip index performed the worst of the four majors.

Their RSI is trending towards the overbought 70-mark, currently sitting at 59.66, while their MACD bullishly crossed the signal line on Friday.

Volumes were +60.69% higher than the prior year’s average levels (6,608,000 vs. 4,112,270), reflecting a similar setup pattern as the three majors above & raising questions as to whether or not we’ll see a rug pull & flurry of profit taking in the near-term.

Monday opened to form a similar bullish harami pattern for DIA on volumes that eclipsed the rest of the week (and most of the rest of the year sans 3 sessions).

Tuesday opened on a gap higher, closed as a spinning top, but with high wave upper & lower shadows, indicating that there was a bit of uncertainty surrounding the session, with the exception of market participants would not let DIA venture above the resistance at the 50 DMA.

Wednesday opened on another gap higher, retraced back into the real body of Tuesday’s candle, before powering higher & breaking out above the 10 & 50 DMA’s resistance levels & closing well above them.

Thursday saw another gap up open, but bears began to come back out once the $475/share level was crossed into short-term profit taking kicked in & prices were forced to close at $474.35, a gain of +0.67% day-over-day.

Friday saw yet another gap up open, and like the aforementioned index ETFs there was little upper shadow on the day’s candle, indicating that investors have become cautious heading into the close of the week.

To the upside, DIA needs to break above the $479.79/share resistance level & see some strong advancing volume if it wants to make a meaningful run at the all-time high ~1% above it.

It’s not impossible, but given the gappy nature of last week’s advances it seems unlikely.

The consolidation case involves closing the windows mentioned above & on the way down finding some support to oscillate around & in -between the 10 & 50 DMAs.

The downside case sees DIA breaking down through the support of the 10 & 50 DMAs, where the $457.13/share support levels comes into clear play, as it is the gatekeeper to the $452-455.99/share zone that is Seller dominated historically.

Should that break down, the $453.84/share zone is likely to break down as well, moving attention in the medium-term to $447.99/share.

DIA has support at the $469.63 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $466.97 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1), $466.61 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1) & $464.28/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1) price levels, with resistance at the $479.79 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $483.79/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday kicks the week off with S&P Final U.S. Manufacturing PMI data at 9:45 am, before ISM Manufacturing data comes out at 10 am.

Credo Technology Group, MongoDB & Vestis all report earnings following Monday’s session.

Auto Sales data is scheduled for release on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning’s earnings calls include Bnak of Nova Scotia & Signet Jewelers, before American Eagle, Asana, Box, CrowdStrike, GitLab, Marvell Technology, Okta & Pure Storage report after the session’s closing bell.

Wednesday brings us ADP Employment data at 8:15 am, followed by Import Price Index (Delayed Report) & Import Price Minus Fuel data at 8:30 am, S&P Final U.S. Services PMI data at 9:45 am & ISM Services data at 10 am.

Dollar Tree, Macy’s, Royal Bank of Canada & Sprinklr all report earnings before the session’s open, before Salesforce, C3.ai, Descartes, Five Below, Guidewire Software, HealthEquity, nCino, PVH, Snowflake & UiPath report after the closing bell.

Initial Jobless Claims & U.S. Trade Deficit data come out Thursday at 8:30 am.

Thursday morning features earnings from Dollar General, Bank of Montreal, Brown-Forman, BRP, CIBC, Donaldson, Hormel Foods, Kroger, Science Applications, Toronto-Dominion Bank & Wiley, followed by Argan, Cooper, DocuSign, Domo, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Rubrik, Samsara, SentinelOne, ServiceTitan, Smith & Wesson, Stitch Fix, Ulta Beauty & Zumies after the closing bell.

Friday the week winds down with Personal Income (Delayed Report), Personal Spending (Delayed Report), PCE Index (Delayed Report), PCE (Year-over-Year), Core PCE Index (Delayed Report) & Core PCE (Year-over-Year) at 8:30 am, followed by Consumer Sentiment (prelim) at 10 am & Consumer Credit at 3pm.

Victoria’s Secret reports earnings before Friday morning’s opening bell.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF edged higher +0.14%, while the VIX closed at 19.83, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.25% & an implied one month move range of +/-5.73%.

Their RSI is flat, sitting just beneath the neutral 50-level at 48.27, while their MACD is still bearish & trending below the signal line over the past two weeks.

Volumes were +16.25% higher than the prior year’s average (79,482,000 vs. 68,374,480), which remains a cause for concern, particularly this week as the top two highest volume days were on declines & eclipse the advancing days.

The week opened on a gap up on the highest advancing volume of the week (but still didn’t hold a candle to Thursday & Friday’s declining volume), opening just below the 10 day moving average’s resistance.

SPY headfaked lower temporarily, before mustering up some steam, breaking out above the 10 DMA & managing to close above it, which had been elusive the prior four sessions.

Tuesday opened slightly lower, but in-line with the 10 DMA waiting to decide to continue marching higher or if the support broke down; the bulls won & the charge carried forward.

Observing that this was the lowest volume session of the week, there’s a great degree of hesitency in the air, if not some outright pockets of fear emerging.

Wednesday confirmed this, on a gap up open that quickly turned foreboding, as bears rushed in, profits were taken (along with risk off of the board) & SPY made a downward run at the support of the 10 DMA.

It was able to recover some of the losses though, but still closed below its opening price as a hanging man candle, carrying particularly bearish implications.

Low volume gap up is usually not a great sign if you’re assessing conviction among market participants, and the lower close than opening price on weak volume all combine to paint a picture that’s not very bright.

Confirmation arrived Thursday, when a high volume session began on a gap lower, breaking through the support of & not looking back to the 10 DMA, with a lower shadow that showed that there was still bearish appetite.

This became quite self evident when Friday opened below the resistance of the 50 day moving average (which was -1.3% below the 10 DMA), head faked lower, but managed to climb higher & break out above the 50 DMA’s resistance.

It was however, unable to retest the 10 day moving average’s resistance, indicating that the short-term trend is not SPY’s-friend at the moment.

The bullish case heading into the weekend echos similar to last week’s, the 10 DMA has to be broken above & some stronger advancing value sessions more consistently may see a shot at a new all-time high.

Closing a Monday gap up on a Friday does not give the impression of much strength, so we’ll need some news to hopefully provide an upwards catalyst.

The consolidation case is similar to what the week showed us already, there’ll be oscillations around & in between the 10 & 50 day moving averages while we await an upside or downside catalyst.

Should we see a downside catalyst, the 50 DMA’s support is first priority, especially given Friday opened below it & managed to close higher than it heading into the weekend.

If it breaks down the next couple of months look very interesting, as there are three support levels currently separating the 50 & 200 DMAs, and two of them historically are Seller Zones (1.57 & 2:1), which could bring the long-term trendline into view.

It also then opens up the filling of the window from June 2025 discussion as a possibility, which would cause the 200 DMA to break down.

SPY has support at the $668.15 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.55:1), $661.21 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1), $653.17 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.57:1) & $638.08/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 2:1) price levels, with resistance at the $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers 2.5:1), $676.92 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $684.96 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $689.70/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF shed -0.14% on the week, as the tech darlings have begun to fall out of favor with market participants.

Their RSI is flat as well, just beneath the neutral 50-mark & sits currently at 46.64, while their MACD has been below their signal line bearishly for two weeks, with a strong looking histogram behind the bearish sentiment.

Volumes were +31.55% higher than the prior year’s average levels (59,930,000 vs. 45,557,560), which has a different layout, but similar sentiment from Friday’s squeeze higher prior to this week’s NVDA earnings, Fed Speakers & return to having government provided economic data as the government has reopened.

Monday saw a similar gap up open as SPY had, some quick profit taking provided a small lower shadow & QQQ ran up to just beneath the resistance of the 10 DMA, indicating that they’re also in a bearish short-term trend.

Tuesday created an interesting set up, opening within Monday’s real body, ducking lower to make a higher low, before closing higher, technically as a hanging man that opened higher than it closed, in a bearish harami pattern on the week’s lowest volume.

Well, Wednesday didn’t offer much more either, minus telling us that the short-term trendline is limiting QQQ & rejecting it back, as QQQ opened on a gap higher above the 10 DMA, sunk below it & wound up closing in-line with it.

Thursday showed there was no more gas in the tank & QQQ opened below the 10 DMA’s resistance & carried lower to bounce off of the 50 day moving average’s support, but close just above it.

Friday opened on a gap lower to below the 50 DMA’s support, tested slightly lower, but found footing & broke out back above the 50 DMA & managed to close above it.

Upper shadow indicates that there is some appetite slightly higher, but the 10 DMA is likely going to reign supreme without some type of major upside catalyst.

If they do manage to run higher beyond the 10 DMA it’s two stops to a new all-time high.

The consolidation case looks more likely when you consider that the 10 DMA focuses on short-term risks across the board, not just on a major company, but to make the run higher sustainable a lot of advancing volume needs to be seen & not just in a one or two session instance..

In the event of consolidation, this past week somewhat set the stage for the range, oscillating in between & around the 10 & 50 day moving averages, which are only -1.97% apart & could apply some downwards pressure.

Now should that occur & we see a downside case emerge, QQQ has more local support levels separating them from their 200 day moving average than SPY, which is beneficial, but also may reflect over exuberance in tech companies.

If the 50 DMA gives out, we see the next support levels in a Seller zone (1.17:1) over the past year, and the next one is $0.13 above another Seller zone at $585-589.99, where the Seller ratio is 3.14:1, that’s likely to provide downwards pressure.

That would make the $582.64-level the next place to watch, in the event of a downside move like that.

QQQ has support at the $605.72 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.2:0*), $598.67 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.17:1), $590.13 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.04:1) & $582.64/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:0*) price levels, with resistance at the $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1), $617.92 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $624.86 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $637.01/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF declined -1.71%, as the small cap index had the worst of the major four.

Their RSI has flattened out halfway between the neutral 50-mark & oversold territory, sitting currently at 41.11, while their MACD continues on in bearish territory, as it has since late September.

Volumes were +29.32% higher than the prior year’s average (43,438,000 vs. 33,589,000), which was primarily fueled by Thursday & Friday’s sessions.

Monday kicked the week off in a similar fashion to SPY & QQQ with a gap up open that was in-line with the 10 day moving average, before breaking down to run at the 50 day MA’s support, which held up.

However, despite running back some of the day’s losses, IWM still closed the day as a hanging man candle that closed lower than it opened, showing continued bearishness on the horizon.

Tuesday opened lower just above the 50 day moving average, broke the support of it briefly, but then rallied higher to briefly break out above the 10 DMA’s resistance, only to settle down & close in-line with it.

Wednesday is when trouble began to really be signaled, as the morning opened higher, tested to $246.38, but then sank for a loss of -0.25%, resting just atop the 10 DMA bearishly crossing through the 50 DMA at the close.

Thursday it all began to unwind, with IWM opening on a gap lower to beneath both moving averages, making a run up at them but not breaking through theresistance & getting sent down for a loss of -2.81% on the highest volume of the week, as fear & panic had set into the small cap index.

Friday opened on a gap lower, but was squeezed higher throughout the day to head into the weekend on an cautiously optimistic note on the week’s second highest volume.

Looking tot he week ahead, the upside case involved IWM breaking out above both the 10 & 50 day moving averages’ resistance levels, which while they are close to one another, will likely require a gap that receives ample fuel to tread water above/climb higher, as there is clearly bearish sentiment congested in there.

The consolidation case revolves around the range created by Friday’s candle, with some space to the top & bottom of it while the 10 & 50 DMA’s catch up with market participants & IWM’s share price – to the upside the $237.55/56 level will cap the range.

The downside case gets interesting, as the $236.27/share level is the nearest support, before nothing until $228.90, a loss of -3.12%, which sits atop a small support zone before the 200 day moving average comes into near-view.

Watch the other major indexes in this note for insight into where IWM may go, as the small cap names are likely to follow them or decline further under the current market conditions.

The table below lays out historic volume Sentiment for IWM & may be helpful in gauging the strength/weakness of support/resistance levels.

IWM has support at the $236.27 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1), $228.90 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1), $226.07 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.07:1) & $225.40/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.07:1) price levels, with resistance at the $237.55/6 (2 Touch-Points, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1), $240.76 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $241.95 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) & $242.35/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF advanced +0.41%, faring the strongest of the major four index ETFs.

Their RSI is heading downwards towards the neutral 50-mark, currently at 51.29, while the MACD dipped bearishly under the signal line on Friday, forming on the histogram what somewhat resembled a middle finger, at what may prove to be an interesting juncture.

Volumes were +87.45% higher than the prior year’s average (7,442,000 vs. 3,970,160), which appears to possibly be a flight from the “Buy & Hold” investment thesis, given the nature of the blue chip names & will be an important reason to be watching DIA’s volume trends in the coming weeks.

DIA opened the week on a gap higher, retesting back down to the $470/share level & rallying higher to close in-line with the 10 day moving average on the week’s second lowest volume.

Tuesday saw the 10 DMA’s resistance break down & DIA ran for the $480/share level (unsuccessfully), on the lowest volume of the week, indicating that market participants had become a bit nervous & just collecting profits while they can, but the side of the day’s range with that low of volume did not reflect confidence.

Wednesday opened on a gap up, ran higher, but the bears came in for their profits & risk management before the $485/share level was reached & a shooting star emerged, indicating bearishness had stepped into the building.

Sure enough, Thursday followed suit & managed to retrace most of Wednesday’s candle’s real bodyq before the ladder got kicked out from under it & the next stop on the elevator down was the 10 day moving average’s support.

Thursday also had the second highest volume of the week, which really shows the weakness behind Tuesday’s gain in terms of lack of faith/short-term breakdown emerging.

Friday opened on a gap down to below the 10 DMA’s support, made a run higher, unable to test the resistance level, while also making a similar sized break lower, before closing as a doji candle.

This signal of bearish uncertainty paints an interesting picture heading into the weekend.

The upside case now is an interesting question, as they have just made another all-time high this week, but have also shown weakness regarding their short-term trend line, making the 10 DMA the first place to be watching, anticipating it to be support & that there’s some strong volume behind it.

If that passes, there’ll either be a tight head & shoulders emerging, else all eyes go to that all-time high.

The consolidation case could emerge here, oscillating between the 10 & 50 DMAs & filling Monday’s window from the gap up open, else a brief up move will show the strength of the 10 DMA & lead the two lines closer together.

The downside case requires a similar strength, but of support coming from the 50 day moving average.

If it can hold up there may be a leg-lower consolidation while we await to see the bearish 10 & 50 DMA crossover, but with such little faith in the short-term trend & it’s current curl, one must be vigilant for gap down opens.

After that, the $454.41 support levels becomes a primary target, as it resides in a Seller Zone (1.1:1).

From there to the downside, there is the $448.55/share level & then the 200 DMA, which also resides in a Seller Zone (1.65:1), which brings the long-term trend of the blue chip index into question.

DIA has support at the $470.22 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $465.97 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1), $464.86 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1) & $454.41/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.1:1) price levels, with resistance at the $473.91 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $480.39 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $484.39/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday the week kicks off with Empire State Manufacturing Survey data at 8:30 am, Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks at 9 am, Fed President Kashkari speaks at 1 pm & Fed Governor Waller speaks at 3:35 pm.

Aramark, Brady, J&J Snack Foods & JinkoSolar all report earnings before Monday’s opening bell, before LifeMD & Trip.com Group report after the session’s close.

Import Price Index & Import Price Index minus Fuel data come out at 8:30 am on Tuesday, followed by Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization data at 9:15 am, Home Builder Confidence Index data at 10 am, Home Builder Confidence Index data at 10 am & Fed Governor Barr speaking at 10:30 am.

Tuesday morning’s earnings reports feature results from Aecom Tech, Amer Sports, Baidu, BellRing Brands, Energizer, Home Depot, James Hardie, Klarna Group, Medtronic, Oaktree Specialty Lending & Weibo, with Dolby Labs, Golub Capital, Helmerich & Payne, La-Z-Boy, Powell Industries & Sociedad Quimica y Minera reporting after the closing bell. 

Wednesday morning features Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey data, Housing Starts & Building Permits data at 8:30 am, before Minutes of October’s FOMC Meeting are published at 2pm.

Birkenstock Holding, Bullish, Dycom, GDS Holdings, Global-E Online, Kingsoft Cloud, Lowe’s, Target, TJX, Viking Holdings & Wix.com all report earnings before Wednesday morning’s opening bell, before NVDA, BrightView, Copa Holdings, Jack In The Box, Kulicke & Soffa, NANO Nuclear Energy, NJ Resources, ODDITY Tech, Palo Alto Networks & ZTO Express all report after the closing bell. 

Initial Jobless Claims data comes out at 8:30 am Thursday, followed by Existing Home Sales & U.S. Leading Economic Indicators data at 10 am, Fed Governor Cook speaking at 11 am, Fed President Goolsbee speaking at 1:40 pm & Fed President Paulson speaking at 6:45 pm.

Thursday’s earnings reports kick off with Walmart, Atkore International, Bath & Body Works, Construction Partners, Jacobs Solutions, Magnera, MAXIMUS, Shoe Carnival, Vipshop & Warner Music Group, before we hear results from Elastic, Esco Tech, Gap, Intuit, Post, Ross Stores, UGI, Veeva Systems & Webull following the session’s close. 

Friday winds the week down with Fed Governor Barr speaking at 8:30 am, Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaking at 8:45 am, Fed President Logan speaking at 9 am, S&P Flash U.S. Services PMI & S&P Flash U.S. Manufacturing PMI data at 9:45 am & Consumer Sentiment (final) data at 10 am.

BJ’s Wholesale, Buckle & Moog all report earnings before Friday’s opening bell.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF dropped -1.63% last week, while the VIX closed at 19.08, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.2% & an implied one month move range of +/-5.51%.

Their RSI is hovering just below the neutral 50-mark, currently at 49.05, while their MACD is bearish after crossing over last week.

Volumes were +17.03% higher than the prior year’s average levels (79,156,000 vs. 67,638,160), which paints an interesting picture, given that two of the top three sessions by high volume were bearish & the highest of the week was Friday’s squeeze higher heading into the weekend.

While it may have depicted a surge of optimism regarding the shutdown ending potentially this week, it is not a reassuring sight of everything being fine.

Monday the week began the week on an unambitious note, opening higher, but then seeing low volume declines throughout the day, at one point testing the support of the 10 day moving average, but recovering slightly to still close the day lower than it opened, but for an day-over-day gain of +0.19%

Tuesday the ladder got kicked out from beneath SPY & we saw the 10 DMA’s support break down, as a gap lower opened the session below the resistance of the 10 DMA, which tested higher, could not break out above the 10 DMA & ultimately closed ominously as a gravestone doji, indicating that there was clearly a lack of risk appetite.

Wednesday provided a glimmer of hope as the day resulted in a bearish engulfing pattern, but on the week’s second lowest volume, indicating that there was limited fuel behind the move & that investor sentiment is still shaky at best.

This was also confirmed by the 10 day moving average’s resistance having a second consecutive day or denying SPY to climb higher; not enough people got behind the move.

Thursday also offered no sign of hope, as a lower open continued to slide throughout the session on the second highest volume of the week, indicating that there was a clear risk-off appetite & it should also be noted that there was not even a run made at the 10 day moving average, the short-term trend line has at least for now rejected SPY.

This brings us to Friday, where one might be fooled by seeing the largest volume of the week being on an advancing session, but weakness continued to show.

The session opened on a gap lower, and market participants drove SPY down to break below the support of the 50 day moving average temporarily.

While they did manage to squeeze it higher for a day-over-day gain of +0.1%, the day’s wide range between the selling/profit taking & then subsequent squeeze into the weekend is more to blame for the high volume, not an actual mentality reset.

It should be noted that in addition to the 50 DMA’s support being cleanly broken through (indicating that the medium-term trend may also be reversing soon), price never came close to the 10 DMA’s resistance, signaling broader problems.

Heading into the week the advancing case requires SPY to break out above the 10 DMA’s resistance, which will require an uptick in advancing volume to come in off of the sidelines if it’s going to be a lasting move.

Should we get that, there may be an additional run at a new all-time high.

The consolidation case would see a range emerging in between & just outside of the 10 & 50 day moving averages where SPY oscillates until we get an upside or downside catalyst to force a breakout.

The downside case continues as its been in weeks past, really hinging on the support of the 50 DMA holding up, as otherwise SPY drops into a zone where Sellers have been more prominent than Buyers at a rate of 2.4:1 which leads into the next support level which is also in a Seller zone at a rate of 1.57:1.

That leads us to the $617.58/share support level, which is the gatekeeper to filling in that gap down from the end of June & entering into the consolidation zones of late 2024 & early 2025 where SPY will seek support.

SPY has support at the $664.53 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1), $653.17 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.57:1), $638.08 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 2:1) & $617.58/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.2:1) price levels, with resistance at the $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1), $679.90 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $689.70/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF declined -3.07% for the week, as the tech-heavy index was the least favorite among market participants.

Their RSI is below the 50 level & sits currently at 47.94, while their MACD crossed the signal line bearishly last week.

Volumes were +35.36% higher than the prior year’s average (60,726,000 vs. 44,863,680), which paints a rather dark picture when you consider the top three highest sessions all came on declines.

Monday set the dreary stage for QQQ, as a higher open quickly descended into a test lower than closed lower than the day opened.

Tuesday opened on a gap down in-line with the 10 day moving average’s support, attempted to break out higher, but bears stepped back in forcing the day to close further lower.

Wednesday opened up slightly lower, but managed to rally back & take another run at the resistance of the 10 day moving average, but bears stepped in & forced QQQ to close lower.

Thursday market participants took the 10 DMA off of the menu, as QQQ opened lower & continued to sink throughout the session on the second highest volume of the week.

Fear had begun sinking in, fast, and it led to Friday morning’s gap down open, which declined to temporarily dip below the support of the 50 day moving average, but bulls stepped in & forced QQQ higher into the close, for a daily return of -0.32%.

Heading into a new week the bullish case resembles that of SPY, the 10 day moving average must be broken through with ample supporting volume if QQQ wants to make another run at their all-time high.

Their consolidation case is also similar, where QQQ will oscillate between & around the outside of the 10 & 50 day moving averages, awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, should the 50 day moving average give out & be broken down the next three support levels are Buyer oriented for QQQ which is to their advantage.

However, if the $573.96/share level breaks down, it sits atop two Seller oriented price zones which may force the decline lower & put the $558.19/share in the spotlight to provide support.

QQQ has support at the $601.14 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.74:1), $590.13 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.04:1), $582.64 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:0*) & $573.96/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 6.88:1) price levels, with resistance at the $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1), $624.79 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $637.01/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF fell -1.88% for the week, as the small cap index had the second worst showing of the four major index ETFs.

Their RSI is also just below the neutral 50 level at 46.27, while their MACD has been bearish since late-September.

Volumes were +18.4% higher than the prior year’s average (39,434,000 vs. 33,305,600), mostly on account of Friday’s wide-range session.

Monday showed that risk-off was still the name of the game for IWM, as the session opened below the 10 day moving average’s resistance, tread almost all the way down to the support of the 50 day moving average, before closing higher but still down -0.32%.

Tuesday this theme continued, as IWM opened lower, made a run up at the 10 DMA’s resistance, but was stopped well short of it by the Sellers & closed down below the support of the 50 day moving average as a spinning top candle at the low end of the day’s range, a sign of fear & uncertainty.

Wednesday showed a glimmer of hope, opening slightly higher & in-line with the 50 DMA, briefly tapping lower but then powering above it, with the day’s high coming within view of the resistance of the 10 DMA.

While it was on the third highest volume of the week, that’s not saying a ton/a major vote of confidence.

Thursday opened lower, was unable to produce much more in terms of a day’s high, and slid in a profit taking spree down to close below the support of the 50 DMA.

Friday opened on a gap down, showed more selling & downside appetite, before squeezing higher to close the day +0.52% heading into the weekend on a wide-range session.

The upside case for IWM currently hinges up the strength of both the 10 & 50 day moving averages as resistance,and whether or not IWM can gap up over them & prevent a bearish crossover from occurring (which appears unlikely, but could happen).

While there are three other resistance levels seperating them from a new all-time high still asides from those two, that is the first step, which should include a healthy uptick in advancing volume before being trusted.

The consolidation case centers around IWM oscillating around & in-between its 10 & 50 DMA’s once they spread out more, awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, the $237.55/6 levels are going to be key for support, as else the next support levels is -3.64% lower, where there will be a big test of support among IWM’s two longest consolidation ranges of their one year chart.

As has been noted before, the other major three index ETFs in this note are going to lead this one lower, so if there’s a decline among them expect IWM to follow, as these price levels are not where folks are rotating from larger caps into small caps upon a selloff.

IWM has support at the $240.76 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $239.79 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1), $237.55/6 (2 Touchpoints, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1) & $228.90/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1) price levels, with resistance at the $242.35 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $242.55 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $245.05 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $248.48/share (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF dipped -1.22%, faring the best of the major index ETFs.

Their RSI is just above the neutral 50 level at 52.71, while their MACD crossed bearishly through the signal line on Thursday & remains below it.

Volumes were +72.81% higher than the prior year’s average (6,726,000 vs. 3,892,200), indicating that there has been some extreme levels of reshuffling, mostly attributed to declining volume of recent, which is cause for caution.

Monday the week began the week on a dark note, as the session opened above Friday’s close, declined down to break through the support of the 10 day moving average, before closing just above it while forming a bearish engulfing pattern.

Tuesday opened below the 10 DMA on a gap down, but managed to close higher than it opened, but still, the spinning top candle made it clear that fear & uncertainty were still in the air.

Wednesday showed an effort to run up & above the 10 DMA’s resistance, but was unable to close above it & ended the day just below the short-term trendline.

Thursday opened lower, made a run at the 10 DMA again, but upon rejection broke down to below the $470/share level on the week’s second highest volume, causing the 10 DMA to begin to curl over from above.

Friday opened lower, made a run lower towards the 50 day moving average’s support, but rallied higher into the day, closed +0.12% on the day & formed a hammer candlestick while closing just below the session’s high, indicating that there may be some hope on the horizon for DIA this week.

To that point, DIA’s upside case requires them to break out & above the 10 day moving average, particularly as it now has been curled over & covering their share price for 4 of the past 5 sessions above.

If they can break out above it, their final resistance level to pass is their most recent all-time high.

As has been noted for months now, there will need to be more advancing volume coming in in order to keep grinding higher at this point.

The consolidation case is going to be oscillations around & in between the 10 & 50 day moving averages while we await an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, if the 50 day moving average’s support breaks down, the $454.41/share support level sits in a Seller dominated zone historically (1.1:1, but near all-time highs & in the blue chip buy & hold index this is signifcant), which is that gives out brings up $448.55/share & the window created in August that has remained unfilled since.

The good news, is that there are some consolidation ranges that can provide support zones, but the bad news is that once we enter near that the 200 day moving average comes into view & the long-term trend may be showing weakness.

DIA has support at the $463.68 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.36:1), $454.41 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.1:1), $448.55 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.8:1) & $445.13/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2:1) price levels, with resistance at the $470.22 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $473.62 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $480.39/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday opens up with no major economic data releases.

Barrick Mining, Bitdeer Technologies, Camtek, Ceva, Dole plc, Enviri Corporation, eToro Group Ltd, EVgo Inc., Global Business Travel, Global Ship Lease, Howard Hughes Holdings, Instacart, KE Holdings, Monday.com, Pagaya, Roivant Sciences, Starwood Property Trust, Surgery Partners, Tower Semi, TreeHouse Foods, Tyson Foods & Venture Global all report earnings Monday morning before the market opens, before AST SpaceMobile, BigBear.ai, Cannae Holdings, CoreWeave, Getty Images, Green Dot, Jamf Holding, Occidental Petro, Paramount Skydance, Repay Holdings, Rigetti Computing, StandardAero, TechTarget, TeraWulf & Tidewater report after the closing bell. 

Tuesday the bond market is closed for Veteran’s Day, but Fed Governor Barr speaks at 10:25 am, and NFIB Optimism Index data comes out at 6 am.

Tuesday morning’s earnings include Sea Limited, SFL Corp. & WhiteFiber, followed by Amdocs, CAE, NANO Nuclear Energy, Oklo & StubHub Holdings after the closing bell.

Fed President Williams speaks at 9:20 am on Wednesday before at 10 am Fed President Paulson speaks, Fed Governor Waller speaks at 10:20 am, Fed President Bostic speaks at 12:15 pm, Fed Governor Miran speaks at 12:30 pm & Fed President Collins speaks at 4pm.

Wednesday morning begins with earnings from Arcos Dorados, Circle Internet Group, Cormedix, GlobalFoundries, Hudbay Minerals, HUYA, Klarna Group plc, Legend Biotech, Manulife Financial, McGraw Hill, Metsera, On, Riskified, Tencent Music & Transdigm Group, before Cisco Systems, Cellebrite DI, Digi International, dLocal Limited, Firefly Aerospace, Flutter Entertainment, Heartflow, Ibotta, KinderCare Learning Companies, Pan Am Silver, Rumble, Tetra Tech & WEBTOON Entertainment report after the session’s close.

Thursday may begin at 8:30 with Initial Jobless Claims, Consumer Price Index, CPI Year-over-Year, Core CPI & Core CPI Year-over-Year data at 8:30 am, should the government shutdown end prior, Fed President Williams speaks at 9:20 am, Fed President Musalem speaks at 12:15 pm, Fed President Hammack speaks at 12:20 pm, the Monthly U.S. Federal Budget data is published at 2 pm & Fed President Bostic speaks at 3:20 pm.

Walt Disney reports earnings Thursday morning, along with Accelerant Holdings, Bilibili, Birkenstock Holding Plc, Canadian Solar, Edgewell Personal Care, Gambling.com Group Ltd., JD.com, MarineMax, NIQ Global Intelligence plc, Paysafe, Sally Beauty, Spectrum Brands & Stratasys, followed by Applied Materials, Beazer Homes, Figure Technology Solutions, Globant, JBS, Newsmax, South Bow & Starz Entertainment after the session’s close.  

Friday also begins with a potential batch of data, dependent on the government reopening that includes U.S. Retail Sales, Retail Sales Minus Autos, Producer Price Index, Core PPI, PPI Year-over-Year & Core PPI Year-over-Year data at 8:30 am, before Business Inventories data at 10 am, Fed President Schmid speaks at 10:05 am & Fed President Logan speaks at 2:30pm.

Scholar Rock & Spire report earnings before the ses open on Friday.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF climbed +0.71% on the week, while the VIX closed at 17.44, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.1% & an implied one month move range of +/-5.04%.

Their RSI is trending higher at 61.43, while their MACD is flat & looking set to bearishly cross through the signal line in the coming day or two.

Volumes were +8.99% higher than the prior year’s average (72,968,000 vs. 66,946,693), which does not paint a strong picture & indicates that there was a lot of profit taking last week due to each day’s performance.

Monday the week began on a gap up to above $680/share, but the week volume was unconvincing of the move higher & its staying power.

Tuesday followed suit, opening on a gap higher & ultimately closing the day as a spinning top candle, indicating temporary equilibrium, with a touch of uncertainty, which was also confirmed by the other lowest volume of the week with Monday’s session.

Caution had begun to creep into the market regarding SPY & its component stocks, with additional warning signs creeping into play on Friday, where 3.37% of SPY component stocks hit fresh 52-week highs, while 6.15% hit fresh 52-week lows.

Technology & AI names had been responsible for the market to grind higher, while under the hood the broader index was not performing as strongly.

Wednesday the cracks became exposed when SPY opened on a gap up, ran at the $690/share level, but was stopped short, increasing their all-time high to $689.70, but closing lower than it opened & forming a hanging man candle, indicating that bearishness had finally set in.

There was a surge in profit taking Wednesday as well, as the session had the highest volume of the week in reaction to earnings reports & their relation to what the currently unreported government economic data may be based on their clues.

Thursday offered confirmation of this, as SPY opened on a gap lower, temporarily fought higher, but bears set in & forced the day down -1.1% on the week’s third highest volume, as folks were making their way towards the exit.

Friday opened on a slight gap up, but fear spread into the market & folks began selling, forcing price down to make a run at the 10 day moving average’s support & closing lower than the day opened.

Moving into a new week, in the event that the 10 DMA’s support is able to sustain then & SPY’s charts can broaden may be able to make another attempt at an all-time high, but it will need solid advancing volume & less profit taking in the near-future following the move to continue higher.

The consolidation case looks like SPY oscillating around the 10 DMA, awaiting a signal in the near-term trend to serve as a catalyst higher or lower while the 50 day moving average creeps higher from just -2.45% below.

What that catalyst may be will be interesting to see, as there are a littany of earnings reports across a wide variety of sectors, industries & market cap sizes, there is U.S. Services data coming out, which has been an area of interest in discussing the inputs to inflation & how they’re reacting to policy differently.

There are also a handful of Federal Reserve speakers this week & given that the government shutdown appears to be continuing on there will be a lot of data that is not reported for the week, which may leave investor unwinding earnings calls & other data announcements to try to piece together how the economy is running.

To the downside, in the event that the support of the 10 DMA gives out, all eyes should fall on the 50 DMA’s support, which will continue climbing higher in the meantime lagging SPY’s price.

While it resides in a Buyer oriented zone from the past ~3 years, if it shows weakness SPY enters back-to-back Seller zones (2.4:1 & 1.57:1), which then makes $638.08 an area of interest, as it becomes the gatekeeper to the next support levels & zone.

SPY has support at the $678.10 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1), $661.49 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.58:1) & $653.17/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.57:1) price levels, with resistance at the $689.70/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF advanced +1.94% on the week, faring the strongest of the major indexes.

Their RSI is trending higher & currently sits at 63.97, while their MACD is bullish, but has flattened & has a waning histogram, indicating weakness on the near-term horizon & like we may see a bearish run at the signal line in the coming days.

Volumes were +39.31% higher than the prior year’s average (61,652,000 vs. 44,256,454), which like SPY may prove to be indicative of weakness, as their advancing/declining volume sessions mirrored one another.

Monday QQQ opened the week on a gap up, but was unable to break above the $630/share level on low volume, indicating that there was a bit on uneasiness still in the air, following the gap post consolidation to end the prior week.

Tuesday also opened on a gap up to above $630 & continued higher, but the day’s upper shadow showed that the bears were beginning to take over & trim some of their recent profits after three consecutive gap ups.

Wednesday also opened on a gap up, and the highest volume session of the week made a run higher to try to break the $640/share level, but was stopped short at a new all-time high of $637.01/share, before profit taking setin & the day ended as a doji candle.

Thursday confirmed this, with QQQ gapping down & more Sellers stepping into the market to take profits from the table & take risk off of the table on the week’s third highest volume.

While day-over-day Friday was +0.48%, the session opened on a gap higher & proceeded to sink lower all day as more profits were taking & risk reduced, but unlike SPY, QQQ remained higher above the support of the 10 day moving average.

Heading into the new week, QQQ’s outlook is similar to SPY’s; the upside case requires more advancing volume with less profit taking in order to make another run higher, but the latter two sessions of the week could be forming the beginning of a broadening pattern, which will be something to keep an eye on.

The conolidation case is also similar, where a range continuing Thursday & Friday’s lead begins to oscillate around the 10 day moving average awaiting a signal of an upside or downside catalyst.

The downside case is also very similar, with QQQ’s 10 day moving average the first key support level, which should it give way puts $613.18 in the hot seat while the window created by the prior Friday fills, leading prices to ~$610/share & bringing the 50 day moving average’s support into question.

That will be a key area to watch as it is currently in a Seller zone (1.17:1) from this past year, which may lead to further selling, in which case $590.13 becomes the gatekeeper, as the $585-589.99/share zone is also Seller dominated (3.14:1).

QQQ has support at the $620.80 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1), $596.46 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.17:1) & $590.13/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.04:1) price levels, with resistance at the $637.01/share (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF declined -1.28% last week, as the small cap index fell out of favor after being the strongest of the four majors the week prior.

Their RSI is trending higher from the neutral 50 level & sits currently at 52.37, while their MACD is bearish.

Volumes were +18.36% higher than the prior year’s average (39,284,000 vs. 33,190,239), which should raise some eyebrows given that the two highest volume sessions of the week were declining.

Monday began the week on a gap up open, but ti all went downhill from there & bears stepped in to force the session downhill & to close lower than it opened on the second lowest volume of the week, a reflection of profit taking from the prior Friday’s gap up session & fear beginning to surround the small cap names after a strong previous week.

Tuesday opened on a gap lower to below the $250/share level, attempted higher & was denied by the bears & ultimately settled down to result in a spinning top candle for the day, indicating that there was a lot of uncertainty in the market when combined with the week’s lowest Volume.

Wednesday began on another gap down, rallied higher to break above $250/share temporarily, before selling off to a daily low of $244.69/share, before recovering to close in-line with the 10 day moving average, signaling that the near-term trend had come under fire.

Thursday provided confirmation of this, as another gap down open resulted in IWM briefly climbing higher above the 10 day moving average’s resistance, but Sellers came in & fored IWM lower on more profit taking & the window formed the previous Friday was closed.

What’s alarming about Thursday’s show of weakness is that the day resulted in a spinning top candle on the low end of the day’s range, simultaneously on the week’s second highest volume, none of which paints a particularly rosy picture for the small cap index.

Friday confirmed this, as a gap up open tested lower, before running up higher to test the resistance of the 10 day moving average, but ultimately ended as a spinning top, signaling uncertainty heading into the weekend.

Heading into a new week the upside case for IWM also lies somewhat on the strength/weakness of SPY, QQQ & DIA, as we’re not at a stage in the market where a bank run on those would prop IWM higher, in fact it would make the small cap names appear even more risky in most cases (particularly when you reference the 52-week highs/lows from Friday mentioned above).

The consolidation case currently looks like IWM oscillating between the 10 & 50 day moving averages, as they await an upside or downside catalyst, as the medium-term trendline has crept to ~2% away from the short-term trendline.

The downside case will also rely heavily on the severity of the other major index’s losses, as IWM has more local support levels due to how it climbs slower & steadier than the other three.

In the event IWM declines, reference the table below for their historic Buyer:Seller (Seller:Buyer) sentiment at each price level that they’ve traded at over the past ~2 years.

IWM has support at the $242.45 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $241.69 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1), $240.76 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) & $239.79/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1) price levels, with resistance at the $247.15 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $248.48 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $252.77/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF added +0.73% last week, as it was the second favorite among the major indexes.

Their RSI is currently flat at the 64.88 level, while their MACD is bullish, but beginning to show signs of a waning histogram & a possible bearish crossover by midweek.

Volumes were +114.45% higher than the prior year’s average (8,246,000 vs. 3,845,099.6), which is cause for concern given that the two of the three highest sessions were declining & clear profit taking with a side of being unenthused.

Monday the week opened on a gap higher, straddling the $475/share level & resulting in the lowest volume session of the week & a doji candle, indicating that ~$475/share is where market participants felt comfortable “waiting & seeing”.

Tuesday also opened on a gap higher, and began showing the faults in DIA’s foundation.

The week’s second highest volume came as profits from the three gap open in a row sessions began being ripped off of the table, and the $480/share level was not broken above.

Wednesday opened slightly higher, ran up to above $480/share, before tumbling to temporarily break down thought the $475/share level, as the profit taking of the day produced the highest volume session of the week & a clear indication that there was downside appetite in the air.

Thursday echoed this sentiment, where a gap down open managed to push higher to above $480/share, but profit-taking again set in intraday & forced a spinning top candle at the close, signaling that there was downside appetite, and a clear, general uncertainty in the air.

Friday this theme continued, where a gap up open resulted in a doji just above the $475/share level, leaving the question based on the body if it is a dragonfly doji that will prove higher in the near-term, or if the long lower shadow is hinting at further downside pain to come, as day-over-day lower highs & lower lows have both been a common story of the week.

Heading into the new week, the upside story remains the same & the story of last week’s volume plus lower highs/lows each day towards midweek to the end of the week makes it seem unlikely to occur.

The consolidation case looks like an extension of what we saw from Tuesday on, where DIA stays range bound & eventually oscillates around the 10 DMA as it awaits an upside/downside catalyst.

To the downside things become interesting, as the blue chip index is more likely to be “bought & held” than the other three aforementioned indexes, but given that its so near all-time highs any selloff may be veiwed as a chance at profits to investors & trigger a more serious move.

In the event that the 10 DMA gives way, watch to see if the 50 DMA is able to stop the bleeding & provide support.

If not, the $454.41/share level is up next for support & it resides in a Seller zone (1.1:1), which also makes the $448.55/share supportlevel the gatekeeper lower as it falls next in line.

DIA has support at the $472.11 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $470.22 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $461.94 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.36:1) & $454.41/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.1:1) price levels, with resistance at the $480.39/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday the week begins with S&P Final U.S. Manufacturing PMI data at 9:45 am, before ISM Manufacturing & (pending government shutdown) Construction Spending data at 10 am & Fed Governor Cook speaking at 2pm.

Affiliated Managers, Ares Management, Axsome Therapeutics, BioCryst Pharma, Bruker, CNA Financial, Freshpet, fuboTV, Hess Midstream Partners, IDEXX Labs, Kontoor Brands, Krystal Biotech, Liquidia Technologies, Napco Security Systems, onsemi, Pediatrix Medical Group, Pinnacle West, Public Service & Vertex all report earnings before Monday’s opening bell, followed by Palantir Technologies, ADTRAN, Air Lease, Ameresco, Atlas Energy Solutions, Boise Cascade, BWX Technologies, Cabot, Capital Southwest Corp., Clorox, CNO Financial, Comstock, Corebridge Financial, Coterra Energy, Denny’s, Diamondback Energy, Eastman Chemical, Ensign Group, EverQuote, Exact Sciences, Fabrinet, Franco-Nevada, Goodyear Tire, Halozyme Therapeutics, Harmonic, Helios Technologies, Hims & Hers Health, Hologic, IAC Inc., ICHOR Corporation, Innovative Industrial Properties, Innovex International, Insperity, Inspire Medical Systems, JBT Marel Corporation, JELD-WEN, Kforce, Lattice Semi, National Storage Affiliates, Navitas Semiconductor, New Mountain Finance, ONE Gas, Ormat Tech, Otter Tail Power, Paymentus, PotlatchDeltic, Primoris Services, Qorvo, Realty Income, RingCentral, Ryman Hospitality, Sanmina, Sarepta Therapeutics, SBA Comm, Simon Properties, Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Tennant, UFP Technologies, Unum Group, V2X, Vertex Pharma, Viper Energy Partners, Vornado Rlty Trust, Voyager Technologies, Williams Cos, Xenon Pharmaceuticals & ZoomInfo after the session’s close.   

U.S. Trade Deficit data is scheduled for 8:30 am on Tuesday, followed by Factory Orders & Job Openings at 10 am (all of which are dependent on the government reopening).

Tuesday morning features earnings reports from AdaptHealth, ADM, ADT, Amicus Therapeutics, Anywhere Real Estate, Axcelis Tech, Ball Corp, Brightstar Lottery, Broadridge Financial, Capri Holdings, CDW, Colliers, Dave, Inc., Driven Brands, Eaton, Ecovyst, Enpro Inc., Exelon, Expeditors International, Ferrari, First Watch Restaurant Group, Fortis, Gartner, Genius Sports, Global Payments, Graphic Packaging, Hamilton Lane, Harley-Davidson, Harmony Biosciences, Henry Schein, Hertz Global, Hillman Solutions Corp., Ingredion, IPG Photonics, Knife River Corp., Kymera Therapeutics, LGI Homes, Life Time, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Marathon Petroleum, Marriott, Martin Marietta, McGraw Hill, Molson Coors Brewing, MPLX LP, Netskope, NNN REIT, Norwegian Cruise Line, Novanta, Ocular Therapeutix, Pfizer, PJT Partners, Portillo’s, Premier, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Sealed Air, Shoals Technologies, Shopify, Silicon Labs, Sotera Health, Spotify, Stanley Black & Decker, SunCoke Energy, The Marzetti Company, Thomson Reuters, TIC Solutions, Inc., TopBuild, TPG Inc., Uber, UL Solutions Inc., Uniti Group, Vital Farms, Waters, Webull Corporation, WhiteFiber, Wingstop, Xometry, Yum China, Yum! Brands & Zoetis, before  A10 Networks, Advanced Energy, Advanced Micro Devices, AES, Aflac, Allegiant Travel, Amentum Holdings, American Financial, American International, Amgen, Andersons, Angi Inc., Arista Networks, Ashland, Assurant, Astera Labs, Aura Minerals, Axon, Benchmark Electronics, Cadre Holdings, California Resources, CareDx, CAVA Group, Chord Energy, Clean Energy Fuels, Corcept Therapeutics, Corsair Gaming, Corteva, Coupang, Day One Biopharmaceuticals, Douglas Emmett, Equitable Holdings, Essential Utilities, Eversource Energy, Everus, Exelixis, Flywire, GoodRx, Grocery Outlet, GXO Logistics, Hinge Health, Horace Mann, Innospec, Intapp, International Flavors, Jack Henry, Jackson Financial, Kinross Gold, Kodiak Gas Services, Kratos Defense and Security, Kyndryl, Limbach, Live Nation, LTC Properties, Lumentum, Macerich, MARA Holdings Inc., Masimo, MasterBrand, Match Group, Matson, Mercury, Mirum Pharmaceuticals, MNTN, Inc., Mosaic, NANO Nuclear Energy, NMI Holdings, O-I Glass, Orion Engineered Carbons, Ovintiv, Par Pacific, Paylocity, Perdoceo Education, Pinterest, PROCEPT BioRobotics, PTC Therapeutics, Qiagen, Qualys, Radian Group, Rapid7, Revolve Group, Rivian Automotive, Select Water Solutions, Sixth Street Specialty Lending, Skyline Champion, Skyworks, SM Energy, StubHub Holdings, Suncor Energy, Super Micro Computer, Supernus Pharma, Tanger Factory, Tempus AI, Teradata, The Baldwin Group, Toast, Trex, Ultragenyx Pharma, Upstart, Veracyte, Voya Financial, Western Midstream, XPLR Infrastructure, LP & Zeta Global report after the closing bell.

Wednesday brings us ADP Employment data at 8:15 am, S&P Final U.S. Services PMI data at 9:45 am & ISM Services data at 10 am.

McDonald’s, ACM Research, Acushnet, Adient, Alight, ArcBest, Ardmore Shipping, Arvinas, Avanos Medical, Avient, Avista, Bentley Systems, Bio-Techne, Brinks, Bullish, Bunge, Cameco, Caris Life Sciences, Cencora, Centuri Holdings, CGI Group, Charles River, Choice Hotels, Cinemark, DigitalOcean, Dine Brands, Dynatrace, Emerson, Establishment Labs, Fidelity National Info, Fiverr, Fortrea, Frontdoor, Green Plains, Humana, InMode, Iron Mountain, Johnson Controls, Jones Lang LaSalle, Kennametal, Klarna Group plc, Kornit Digital, Lemonade, Lineage, LivaNova, Louisiana-Pacific, Mannkind, Metsera, Middleby, National Vision, New York Times, Northwest Natural, Owens Corning, Parsons, Payoneer, Performance Food Group, Perrigo, Plains All American, PPL Corp, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Royalty Pharma, Sabre, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Sempra Energy, Sleep Number, SolarEdge Technologies, Sonos, Southwest Gas, Sportradar Group AG, Steven Madden, Sunoco LP, Taboola, Teva Pharma, Trimble, Unity Software, Wolverine, XPEL & Zimmer Biomet all report earnings on Wednesday morning, followed by Robinhood Markets, Acadia Healthcare, ACADIA Pharmaceuticals, ACV Auctions, Adaptive Biotechnologies, ADMA Biologics, Albany International, Albemarle, Allstate, Almonty Industries, Alpha and Omega Semi, AMC Entertainment, Amcor, American States Water, Amplitude, APA Corp., AppLovin, Arm Holdings plc, Array Tech, Atmos Energy, B&G Foods, B2Gold, Barrett Business, Black Hills Corp, Blue Owl Technology Finance Corp, Bumble, Centrus Energy, Certara, CF Industries, Chime, Coherent, CONMED, CoreCivic, Corpay, Coty, Crane NXT, CRH Plc., CSG Systems, Curtiss-Wright, Cytokinetics, Deluxe, Devon Energy, DoorDash, Duolingo, Dutch Bros, e.l.f. Beauty, Encore Capital, Energy Transfer, Enersys, Enovix, Equinox Gold, Excelerate Energy, Fair Isaac, Fastly, Figma, Fortinet, Forward Air, Freshworks, Frontier Group Holdings, FS KKR Capital, Genco Shipping & Trading, GFL Environmental, Grand Canyon Education, Greif, Hecla Mining, Herbalife Nutrition, HighPeak Energy, Host Hotels, HubSpot, Informatica, Ingevity, Interparfums, IonQ, Jazz Pharma, Joby Aviation, Kemper, Kinetik, Klaviyo, LegalZoom.com, Light & Wonder, LiveRamp, Lucid Group, Lyft, Magnite, Manitowoc, Marqeta, Marriott Vacations, Maze Therapeutics, McKesson, MetLife, Miami International Holdings, MKS Inc., Murphy Oil, National Fuel Gas, NCR Atleos, Nutrien, Open Text, OPENLANE, Pattern Group, Paycom Software, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, Penumbra, Permian Resources, Power Integrations, Primerica, Procore Technologies, PTC, Q2 Holdings, Qualcomm, QuidelOrtho, Rayonier, Remitly Global, Resideo, Revolution Medicines, RLJ Lodging Trust, Root, Inc., Royal Gold, RxSight, Sabra Health Care REIT, Safehold, Schrodinger, Seadrill Ltd, Sezzle, Sinclair Broadcast, SiTime, Slide Insurance Holdings, Snap, South Bow Corporation, Sprout Social, Steris, Sturm Ruger, Talen Energy, Talos Energy, Titan America, TKO Group Holdings, Tronox, Tutor Perini, U.S. Physical Therapy, Veeco Instruments, Vir Biotechnology, Warrior Met Coal, Watts Water Tech., Workiva & ZipRecruiter have their calls after the closing bell.  

Initial Jobless Claims & U.S. Productivity data are scheduled for release on Thursday at 8:30 am, before Wholesale Inventories data at 10 am (all dependent on the government shutdown ending), Fed President Williams speaking at 11 am, Fed President Paulson speaking at 4:30 pm & Fed President Musalem speaking at 5:30 pm.

Thursday morning’s earnings calls include AAON, ACI Worldwide, Advanced Drainage Systems, Air Products, Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Altice USA, Ameren, Americold Realty Trust, Appian, ArcelorMittal, Aspen Aerogels, AstraZeneca, ATS Corp, Autohome, BCE Inc, Becton Dickinson, BeOne Medicines, Bloomin’ Brands, Canada Goose, Canadian Natural Resources, Cars.com, Clear Secure, Cogent Communications, Collegium Pharmaceutical, Commerce.com, ConocoPhillips, Core Natural Resources, Cummins, D-Wave Quantum, Datadog, Dentsply Sirona, Ducommun, DuPont, Enovis Corporation, EPAM Systems, Evergy, Gogo, Granite Construction, Haemonetics, Hyatt Hotels, Insulet, International Seaways, Janus International Group, Kelly Services, Kenvue, Kimbell Royalty Partners, Krispy Kreme, Lamar Advertising, Lantheus Holdings, LifeStance Health Group, Ligand Pharma, Lightspeed, MACOM Technology, Marex Group plc, MasterCraft, MDU Resources, Moderna, N-able, NCR Voyix Corporation, NetScout Systems, Nexstar, Nomad Foods, Nova Measuring, NRG Energy, Olaplex, Oscar Health, Papa John’s, Parker-Hannifin, PENN Entertainment, Planet Fitness, Playtika, Prestige Consumer, Primo Brands Corporation, Privia Health, Ralph Lauren, Rockwell Automation, RXO, Inc., ScanSource, SharkNinja, Shift4 Payments, Somnigroup International, Stagwell, Stevanato Group S.p.A., Strategic Education, Sun Life, Tapestry, TC Energy, Tecnoglass, Teleflex, TripAdvisor, Under Armour, United Parks & Resorts Inc., US Foods, Vericel, Viatris, Vistra Corp., Walker & Dunlop, Warby Parker, Warner Bros. Discovery & YETI Holdings, with reports coming in from 10x Genomics, Affirm, Airbnb, Akamai Tech, Alarm.com, Alliant Energy, American Healthcare REIT, AMN Healthcare, Applied Optoelectronics, Archer Aviation, Arlo Technologies, Artivion, Assured Guaranty, Astrana Health, AvePoint, Barings BDC, Bill.com, BlackLine, Block, Brighthouse Financial, Camden Property, CarGurus, Celanese, Century Aluminum, Chemours, Chesapeake Utilities, Civitas Resources, Con Edison, Concentra, Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Diamondrock Hospitality, Diodes, Doximity, DraftKings, Dropbox, EverCommerce, EVERTEC, Evolent Health, eXp World Holdings, Expedia Group, Fidelity National, FIGS, Inc., Five9, Flowers Foods, Fox Factory Holding, Gen Digital, Genpact, Globus Medical, Grindr, H & R Block, Huntsman, ICU Medical, indie Semiconductor, Innodata, IREN Limited, JFrog, Karman Space and Defense, Lemaitre Vascular, LifeMD, Lionsgate Studios, Mettler-Toledo, Microchip, Monster Beverage, MP Materials, National Health, NerdWallet, News Corp., nLIGHT, Northern Oil & Gas, NuScale Power, Omada Health, OneStream, Onto Innovation, Opendoor Technologies, OUTFRONT Media, Palomar Holdings, PAR Technology, Peloton, Pembina Pipeline, Progyny, QuinStreet, QXO, Inc, Rackspace Technology, RB Global, Solventum, SoundHound AI, StepStone Group, Sunrun, Sweetgreen, Synaptics, Take-Two, Tandem Diabetes Care, Texas Roadhouse, The Trade Desk, Trupanion, Universal Display, USA Rare Earth, Victory Capital, VTEX, Wheaton Precious Metals, WillScot Mobile Mini, Wynn Resorts, Xponential Fitness, Yelp, Ziff Davis & Zymeworks following the session’s close. 

Friday the week winds down with U.S. Employment Report Data, U.S. Unemployment Rate, U.S. Hourly Wages & Hourly Wages Year-over-Year at 8:30 am (all dependent on the government shutdown abating), before Fed President Logan speaks at 9:30 am, Consumer Sentiment (prelim) data is announced at 10 am & Consumer Credit data at 3pm.

Algonquin Power & Utilities, AMC Networks, American Axle, ANI Pharma, Atmus Filtration Technologies, Brookfield Infrastructure, CNH Industrial, Conduent, Constellation Energy, Delek US Holdings, DoubleVerify, Duke Energy, Enbridge, Essent Group, Fluor, Franklin Resources, Gray Media, KKR, Koppers Holdings, MarketAxess, Perella Weinberg Partners, Six Flags Entertainment, Sunstone Hotel, Sylvamo, Telephone & Data, Telus & Wendy’s all report their most recent before Friday’s opening bell.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF added +1.94% this week, while the VIX closed the week at 16.37, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.03% & an implied one month move range of +/-4.73%.

Their RSI is trending towards overbought levels at 62.74, while their MACD is bullish following Friday’s crossover.

Volumes were +1.77% higher than the prior year’s average (67,452,000 vs. 66,277,052), down sharply from the previous week, which is underwhelming in the wake of last week’s +39.15% higher than average session, indicting waning enthusiasm & perhaps a bit of reality setting in.

Monday the week opened on its second lowest volume on a gap up open above the resistance of the 10 day moving average & managed to grind higher throughout the day for a gain of +1.04%.

Tuesday opened just higher, but market participants were a bit uneasy & the day closed slightly lower as a doji candle, which when combined with the week’s lowest volume paints a picture of uncertainty & temporary complacency while awaiting more data & earnings news.

Wednesday echoed the uneasy feeling, as the session opened up in-line with Tuesday & from there the bottom fell out, and SPY temporarily dipped below the 10 day moving average’s support before recovering to still close the day down -0.52%.

Wednesday’s session was the highest volume of the week which should be noted, as Wednesday formed a bearish engulfing pattern with Tuesday’s candle & folks were clearly beginning to take the money & run.

Thursday opened slightly higher & was able to advance throughout the session, but still fell short of Wednesday’s opening price, while SPY moved further away from its 10 DMA’s support.

Friday opened on a gap higher & the second highest volume session of the week established a new all-time high heading into the weekend on intraday gains of +0.82%.

This raises many questions, as earnings reports continue to come in following the major banks last week & this week’s economic data features a number of reports that may not be available due to the government shutdown, as well as the FOMC decision which many folks see as being a .25 bps cut, which makes Friday’s gains look like front-running a quick profit.

SPY’s upside case continues to remain the same, in order to see lasting, higher results they’ll need to continue to see increased advancing volume that keeps pushing it higher in order to be sustainable; otherwise this has truly begun to look like a game of Jenga.

This is particularly true based on the week-over-week volume decline & Friday’s gap up heading into the weekend session, neither of which inspire a ton of confidence in the new all-time high.

The consolidation case moving forward continued to remain the same as well, where SPY hugs & oscillates around the 10 day moving average in a similar manners to what we’ve seen over three of the past four weeks, awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

This week should be ripe for one, given that there is a high likelihood that much of the week’s economic data is not available, there are many anticipated earnings reports from various sectors that will lay insight into the state of U.S. consumers & businesses & there is the FOMC interest rate announcement coming Wednesday.

To the downside the risk becomes more interesting this week, particularly due to Friday’s gap up session heading into the weekend & the window that it created that will need to be filled.

What adds to this is that should the 10 DMA & the $673.95/share levels break down, the 50 day moving average’s support is now still in a Seller oriented zone where they’ve historically outnumbered Buyers 2.4:1 & the next support level falls in a price zone that has seen Sellers outnumber Buyers 1.57:1.

In the event of a breakdown like that, the next support level also resides in a Seller dominated zone (2:1), which brings all eyes down to -8.81% at $617.58/share, which happens to be the gatekeeper of the consolidation range of late 2024-early 2025 that houses many support levels.

That support zone is the gatekeeper to the window created in May of 2025 that has remained unfilled, but that’s looking a bit too far ahead at the moment.

SPY has support at the $673.95 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.5:1), $667.49 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.55:1), $656.88 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 2.4:1) & $653.17/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.57:1) price levels, with resistance at the $678.47/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ , the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF gained +2.18% for the week, as the tech-heavy index was not a favorite among market participants.

Their RSI is trending higher at 62.81, while their MACD is currently bullish following Friday’s crossover.

Volumes were +11.17% higher than the prior year’s average (48,450,000 vs. 43,582,231), as there was less market participant enthusiasm week-over-week, but the declining volume hints at a story brewing.

Monday the week kicked off on a gap up, breaking above the $610/share level.

Tuesday things began to show signs of trouble, as the session opened in-line with Monday’s close, but could only close as a doji for a day-over-day loss of -0.03% & market participants were clearly uneasy.

Wednesday opened lower & sank, temporarily breaking through the support of the 10 day moving average & showing that the short-term trendline was weak.

The week’s highest volume also took place on Wednesday, which indicates that there was a lot of profit taking being done, while also reflecting the pump that pushed prices back above the 10 DMA.

Thursday opened lower & in-line with the 10 day moving average, but was able to push higher to close just below Wednesday’s open, another sign of near-term weakness.

This was confirmed Friday when QQQ opened on a gap up, but closed the session as a spinning top candle on the week’s second highest volume.

While that volume tidbit would normally be the important part in a weekly review & paint a rosy picture of advancing volume heading into the weekend when many folks prefer to not carry risk, given the week-over-week decline in volume from +57.78% above the prior year’s average to just +11.17%, it shows a clear lack of demand.

The upside case for QQQ remains the same, in order to continue securing new all-time highs there will need to be sustained increases advancing volume before it can be trusted & until then should be met with a skeptical brow anytime we see a new all-time high at this rate.

The consolidation case, much like SPY’s is similar to that of the past few weeks, where QQQ will oscillated around the 10 day moving average & await an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, there is a heavy concentration of historic Buyer sentiment at QQQ’s first few support levels, but, the price zone just above the 50 day moving average (which is moving higher each day) is a Seller dominated zone (1.17:1).

Should QQQ drop below $595/share (which is only a decline of -3.58%) things become interesting, as the consolidation range of August 2025 becomes a support zone that comes into play just below another Seller dominated zone (3.14:1).

QQQ has more support from 2025 than SPY does, but the story will be similar, although likely with QQQ leading the charge.

Should that zone break down, the zone from December into February becomes the next support in focus.

QQQ has support at the $613.18 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.17:1), $606.22 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.2:0*), $590.41 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.04:1) & $590.13/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.04:1) price levels, with resistance at the $618.42/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF advanced +2.47%, as the small cap index led the week in gains.

Their RSI is trending higher, currently at 58.06, while their MACD is bearish, but making a run at the signal line, which will likely only amount to a dolphin, where the signal line is temporarily broken through & then dove right back beneath.

Volumes were -2.06% lower than the prior year’s average (32,138,000 vs. 32,814,462), which should be curious to everyone, given that the small cap index led the four majors in weekly gains.

Monday led the week off on a gap up above the 10 day moving average’s resistance for IWM, but not establishing firm footing for support higher.

Tuesday formed a bearish harami pattern with Monday’s session, with the day’s lower candle touching off of the support of the 10 DMA.

Wednesday showed that there was conviction behind this move, as IWM opened on a gap down, struggled higher temporarily, before ultimately plunging below the 10 DMA’s support, with the day’s lower show indicating that there was a lot of profit taking & comfort with downside movements & that the 50 day moving average’s support was in play.

This wild intraday movement accounted for the highest volume of the week.

Thursday opened higher, broke out above the 10 day moving average before settling down to close just above it.

Friday cast an ominous shadow on the small cap index, as the gap up open closed to resemble a gravestone doji (bearish), and the advancing volume was the second lowest volume of the week.

Additionally, the window itself that was created by the move also now features the 10 day moving average moving through it, which we’ll look at in a moment.

The upside case for IWM resembled that of SPY & QQQ & what we’ve said for weeks, the all-time high train can only continued with higher participation if it wants to be viewed as safe.

The consolidation case will involve oscillations around the 10 day moving average or straddling atop it, while we await an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside things get murky as IWM’s first two support levels lack enough data for a Buyer:Seller ratio, and a breakdown leads to a breakdown in the short-term trend.

While IWM has more clusters of support locally vs. its larger cap counterparts, it is going to move in tandem with them, so a breakdown of any of them will lead to a breakdown of IWM.

Watch the 50 day moving average, for if it breaks down the $235.99/share level is Seller dominated (1.03:1), but walks IWM lower until the $228.90/share support level (-8.23% from Friday’s close).

IWM has support at the $248.48 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $246.54 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $240.76 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.19:1) & $239.54/share (50-Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.56:1) price levels, with resistance at the $252.77/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF trudged +2.26% higher on the week, as the blue chip index was in second highest demand of the week.

Their RSI is trending higher at 63.68, while their MACD broke out bullishly on Friday & will be interesting to watch to see if it can continue higher or if it dolphins back below the signal line this week.

Volumes were +63.32% higher than the prior year’s average (6,096,000 vs. 3,732,590), as the blue chip index remained the most resilient of the majors by participation rate, but, the highest volume session of the week came on Wednesday on a decline, which raises questions.

Monday the week began on a gap up open above the 10 DMA’s resistance, but the move lacked power due to the lowest volume of the week.

Tuesday opened on a gap higher, retraced into Monday’s range, but managed to Garner support & rip higher, temporarily crossing the $470/share level, but profits taking set in & ultimately DIA settled +0.48% day-over-day.

Wednesday that profit taking set in in full-force, as the session opened up one penny below Tuesday’s, and continued to tank throughout the day on the week’s highest volume, signaling that people wanted their profits, and fast.

Thursday opened lower & made a test towards the 10 DMA’s support, but ultimately the bulls came back into the room & forced a day-over-day gain of +0.32%, which brings us to a fork in the road.

This occurred on the second lowest volume of the week, indicating that there was not much upside appetite at all at the end of the day & perhaps folks were just buying at a discount after selling in the prior couple of days.

Running with that sentiment, the lackluster performance of participants showing up vs. the rest of the week signals that we’re likely approaching the top levels of the diving board.

Friday didn’t do much else beyondconfirming this, as a gap up open on the second highest volume of the week sent DIA into the weekend +1.05% on the day.

Given the 100%+ volume over the prior year’s average of last week & this week’s +63.32% higher rate, DIA’s +2.26% gains for the week seem cheap, particularly if a +1.05% advance came on Friday two days after a high volume decline day.

The blue chip index will continue higher like the rest of the majors mentioned before, perhaps more handsomely, but while relying on the same underlying thesis of attaining more all-time highs safely will involve consistent volume.

Even thought they’ve experienced elevated volume, the consistency is lacking & it’s tough to trust moves higher from here, even though most of the owners of the component names are looking at it through “buy & hold” goggles.

The consolidation case is the same as IWM’s, look to see straddling of/oscillations around the 10 day moving average while we await an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, all eyes should be on the 10 DMA’s support first, as if the short-term trend is violated the medium-term terndline comes next at ~1% lower.

Given the buy & hold nature of the index, a bank run on DIA components will easily push prices below the 50 DMA’s suport, which introduces us to a Seller’s zone of $452-455.99/share, and then exposes open range of field between support levels & may even draw into play the 200 Day moving average, but that’s for the next week(s) to decide.

DIA has support at the $470.22 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $464.83 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.9:1), $459.11 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.44:1) & $454.41/share (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.1:1) price levels, with resistance at the $473.24/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Durable Goods Orders & Durable Goods minus Transportation data come out Monday at 8:30 am, unless the government shutdown persists causing it to be delayed.

Monday morning’s earnings reports include Bank of Hawaii, Carter’s, Easterly Government Properties, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Lakeland Financial & Revvity, before Agilysys, Alexandria RE, Ameris Bancorp, Amkor, Arch Capital, Avis Budget, Bed Bath & Beyond, BioMarin Pharmaceutical, Brown & Brown, Cadence Design, Celestica, Cincinnati Financial, Confluent, Crane, Custom Truck One Source, Dorman Products, F5 Networks, FTAI Aviation Ltd., Hartford Financial, Kilroy Realty, Leggett & Platt, Noble Corporation, Northwest Bancshares, NOV Inc., Nucor, NXP Semiconductor, Olin, Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Principal Financial, Ramaco Resources, Rambus, Seacoast Banking, Simpson Manufacturing, Universal Health, Waste Management, Welltower & Whirlpool after the closing bell.

Tuesday brings us S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (20 Cities) data at 9 am, before Consumer Confidence data at 10 am.

A.O. Smith, Alkermes Plc, American Tower, Applied Industrial, Ares Capital, Armstrong World Industries, Asbury Automotive, ATI Inc., Axalta Coating Systems, BrightSpring Health Services, Carrier Global, CECO Environ., Check Point Software, Commvault Systems, Corning, Curbline Properties, D.R. Horton, Ecolab, Franklin Electric, Group 1 Auto, Herc Holdings, HNI, Hope Bancorp, Hubbell, Incyte, Invesco, IQVIA, JetBlue Airways, Labcorp Holdings Inc., MSCI, NeoGenomics, New Oriental Education & Technology, NextEra Energy, PayPal, PHINIA, Polaris Industries, Regeneron Pharma, Repligen, Royal Caribbean, Sherwin-Williams, Smithfield Foods, SoFi Technologies, Sysco, Tenet Healthcare, Trimas, UnitedHealth, UPS, V.F. Corp, Wayfair, Xylem & Zebra Tech report earnings Tuesday morning, followed by Acadia Realty Trust, Amrize, Artisan Partners Asset Mgmt, Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son, Bloom Energy, Booking Holdings, BXP, Inc., Caesars Entertainment, Camping World, Cheesecake Factory, Chemed, CoStar Group, Edison, Electronic Arts, Enphase Energy, Equity Residential, ExlService, Expand Energy, First Commonwealth, Flowserve, Four Corners Property Trust, Frontier Communications Parent, GeneDx, Greenbrier, Highwoods Prop, Huron Consulting, Landstar System, Meritage, Mirion Technologies, Modine Manufacturing, Mondelez Int’l, MSA Safety, Nabors Industries, Neurocrine Biosciences, ONEOK, PPG Industries, Range Resources, Red Rock Resorts, Regency Centers, RenaissanceRe, Renasant, Seagate Tech, Sensata Tech, Stride, Teradyne, Ternium S.A., Titan America, Trustmark, Ultra Clean Holdings, UMB Financial Corporation, Varonis Systems, Veralto, Visa, VSE Corp, W.P. Carey & Zurn Elkay Water Solutions after the session’s close.

Advanced U.S. Trade Balance in Goods, Advanced Retail Inventories & Advanced Wholesale Inventories data comes out Wednesday at 8:30 am, pending that the government shutdown does not cause it to be delayed, followed by Pending Home Sales data at 10 am, the FOMC Interest-Rate Decision at 2pm & Fed Chair Powell’s Press Conference at 2:30 pm.

Wednesday morning begins with earnings reports from AerCap, American Electric, Archrock, Automatic Data, Avantor, Avnet, Bausch + Lomb, Blackbaud, Boeing, Brinker, Caterpillar, Centene, Chart Industries, Chefs’ Warehouse, Clarivate, Clean Harbors, Constellium, Criteo, CVS Health, Dana Inc, Donnelley Financial, Entergy, ESAB Corp., Etsy, Evercore, Extreme Networks, Fiserv, Flex, Fortive, Fresh Del Monte, Garmin, Gates Industrial, GE HealthCare, Generac, Gildan Activewear, GlaxoSmithKline, Hayward Holdings, IDEX Corp, Ionis Pharma, ITT, Kirby, Kraft Heinz, Leonardo DRS, Littelfuse, Masco, Materion, MGP Ingredients, Monro Muffler, Navient, NiSource, OGE Energy, Old Dominion, OneSpaWorld, Oshkosh, Otis Worldwide, Penske Auto, Phillips 66, ProPetro, Prosperity Bancshares, Radware, Reynolds Consumer Products, Silgan Holdings, SiteOne Landscape Supply, Smurfit Westrock plc, Stepan Company, TE Connectivity, The Vita Coco Company, Timken, TriNet Group, UBS AG, United Therapeutics, Verisk Analytics, Verizon, Virtu Financial & Watsco, before Alphabet,  Agnico-Eagle Mines, Alamos, Align Tech, Allison Transmission, American Homes 4 Rent, American Water Works, Antero Midstream, Antero Resources, AtriCure, AvalonBay, AXIS Capital, Bio-Rad Labs, Boot Barn Holdings, C.H. Robinson, Cactus, Calix Networks, Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd., Carlisle Cos, Carvana, CBIZ, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Coeur Mining, Cognex, Cognizant Tech, Cohu, CVR Energy, DaVita, Dayforce, DHT, eBay, Encompass Health, EPR Properties, Equinox Gold, Essex Property, Ethan Allen, Everest Group, Extra Space Storage, First Interstate Bancsystem, FMC Corp, FormFactor, Glaukos, Green Brick Partners, Guardant Health, Hanover Insurance, Impinj, Independence Realty Trust, Invitation Homes, KLA Corporation, Magnolia Oil & Gas, MediaAlpha, MercadoLibre, Meta Platforms, Methanex, MGIC Investment, MGM Resorts, Microsoft, Mid-America Aptmt, Mister Car Wash, Moelis, Murphy USA, MYR Group, NETGEAR, NorthWestern, Opko Health, Pilgrim’s Pride, Pitney Bowes, Provident Finl, Prudential, Public Storage, Regal Rexnord, Rollins, Rush Enterprises, Rush Street Interactive, ServiceNow, Skyward Specialty Insurance Group, Sprouts Farmers Market, STAG Industrial, Starbucks, Sun Communities, Teekay Tankers, Teladoc, Tenable, TransMedics Group, Transocean, TTM Tech, Tyler Tech, Udemy, UDR, UFP Industries, Ventas, Verra Mobility, Viavi, Waystar Holding Corp., WEX & Wolfspeed report their earnings after the closing bell.

Thursday begins with Initial Jobless Claims (pending on whether it is delayed due to government shutdown) & GDP data at 8:30 am, before Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Bowman speaks at 9:55 am.

Advance Auto Parts, Allegro Microsystems, Alnylam Pharma, Altria, Ameriprise Financial, Ametek, Apellis Pharmaceuticals, APi Group, Aptiv, Baxter, Belden, Biogen, BorgWarner, Bristol-Myers, California Water, Cardinal Health, CCC Intelligent Solutions, Cheniere Energy, CMS Energy, CNX Resources, Columbus McKinnon, Comcast, Commscope, Crocs, Cullen/Frost, Cushman & Wakefield, DigitalBridge, DT Midstream, DTE Energy, Eagle Materials, Eli Lilly, EMCOR Group, Entegris, Enterprise Products, Estee Lauder, Federal Signal, Ferrari, FirstCash, Fox Corporation, Genesis Energy, L.P., Gibraltar Industries, Hershey Foods, HF Sinclair, Hilton Grand Vacations, Howmet Aerospace, Huntington Ingalls, IdaCorp, Insight Enterprises, Insmed, Int’l Paper, Integra, Intercontinental Exchange, InterDigital, Itron, Janus Henderson Group, KBR, Kellanova, Kimberly-Clark, Kimco Realty, L3Harris, Laureate Education, LCI Industries, Lincoln Electric, Lincoln National, LKQ, LXP Industrial Trust, Malibu Boats, Mastercard, Medical Property Trust, Merck, Newmark Group, NovoCure, Omnicell, Option Care Health, Patrick Industries, PBF Energy, Peabody Energy, Quanta Services, Restaurant Brands Int’l, Roblox, RPC, S&P Global, Saia, Schneider National, Scorpio Tankers, Shake Shack, Sirius XM, Southern, The Cigna Group, Thryv, Tradeweb Markets, Trane, Trinity Industries, Upbound Group, Utz Brands, Valaris, Vontier, Vulcan Materials, Wabash Natl, WEC Energy Group, Wesco, Westlake Corporation, Willis Towers Watson, Xcel Energy & XPO, Inc. host their earnings calls Thursday mornings, followed by Amazon.com, Apple, Adtalem Global Education, Alignment Healthcare, Alkami Technology, Alphatec, AppFolio, AptarGroup, Arcosa, Ardelyx, Arrow Electronics, Arthur J. Gallagher, Atlassian, Axos Financial, BJ Restaurants, Bright Horizons, Casella Waste, Cloudflare, Coinbase Global, Columbia Banking, Columbia Sportswear, COPT Defense Properties, Cousins Prop, CubeSmart, Dexcom, DXC Technology, Edwards Lifesciences, Employers Holdings, Exponent, Federated Hermes, First Solar, Floor & Decor, Fortune Brands Innovations, Gaming and Leisure Properties, Gilead Sciences, GoDaddy, Grid Dynamics, Healthcare Realty, Hercules Capital, Houlihan Lokey, Hub Group, ICF International, Illumina, Ingersoll-Rand, iRhythm, LendingTree, LPL Financial, Lumen Technologies, MasTec, Merit Medical, Monolithic Power, Motorola Solutions, Omega Health, Park Hotels & Resorts, PriceSmart, Quaker Chemical, Reddit, Reinsurance Group of America, Republic Services, ResMed, Rocket Companies, Roku, Ryan Specialty Group, Savers Value Village, Select Medical, Silicon Motion, SkyWest, SPS Commerce, SPX Technologies, Strategy Inc, Stryker, Twilio, VICI Properties, Werner Enterprises, Western Digital, Weyerhaeuser & Zillow after the closing bell. 

Employment Cost Index, Personal Income, Personal Spending, PCE Index, PCE (Year-over-Year), Core PCE Index & Core PCE (Year-over-Year) are all scheduled for release Friday at 8:30 am (pending the government shutdown does not force them to be delayed), before Fed President Logan Speaks at 9:30 am, Chicago Business Barometer (PMI) data comes out at 9:45 am & Fed Presidents Hammack & Bostic speak at 12 pm.

Friday morning’s earnings calls include AbbVie, AGCO Corp, Aon, Canadian Nat’l Rail, Cboe Global Markets, Cenovus Energy, Charter Communications, Chevron, Church & Dwight, Colgate-Palmolive, Dominion Energy, Exxon Mobil, Federal Realty, Grainger, Imperial Oil, Interface, Lear, Linde plc, LyondellBasell, Magna, Newell Brands, nVent Electric, Oil States, OneMain Holdings, Owens & Minor, Piper Sandler, Portland Gen Elec, Protolabs, RBC Bearings, Sensient, T. Rowe Price, Telus, Terex, WisdomTree & Xenia Hotels.

See you back here next week! 

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

Since our last Volume Sentiment Analysis in September markets have slowly ground higher, with some slight volatility in early October that has largely been recovered, but new record all time highs have been elusive for SPY & QQQ, but have been attained by IWM & DIA.

For those who read our note weekly, this comes as no surprise given that SPY & QQQ have moved in very similar manners week-over-week, with IWM & DIA moving somewhat in tandem as well.

Last night the VIX closed at 18.6, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.17% & an implied one month move range of +/-5.38% for the S&P 500.

For those keeping score at home, SPY has a beta of 1, QQQ’s beta is 1.14, IWM’s is 1.46 & DIA’s is 0.99 (per Fidelity data pulled last night).

Volumes have been escalating after a over a year of highly subdued levels compared to the prior 3-4 years, with even this week DIA experiencing a weekly jump of +100.98% compared to the prior year’s average (7,376,000 vs. 3,670,040), QQQ seeing a +57.78% jump (68,176,000 vs. 43,210,438), IWM experiencing a +44.34% increase (47,022,000 vs. 32,578,088) & SPY coming in at a jump of +39.15% vs. the prior year’s average volume (91,420,000 vs. 65,697,291).

This most recent earnings season has also seen a bit more volatility than the prior few early on, indicating that there may be more negative sentiment awaiting market participants in the coming weeks-to-month.

This is particularly true given than as has been noted in weeks prior, QQQ is likely to lead the charge up or the fall down & they’ve been unable to crack a new all-time high this week, despite the blue chip DIA & small cap IWM scraping by to new ones.

Add in the government shutdown, rumors on international relations that have mostly not quite seemed to have played themselves out yet & where we sit in the FOMC interest rate cycle with regards to employment data (and lack thereof, given Chair Powell’s implications of a hazy outlook on the horizon at best & cutting as a “hedge”) and it seems like a great time to check in on the strength/weakness of the major four index ETFs’ support/resistance levels.

Each section below contains a view of each index ETF’s chart (for a technical breakdown of each’s chart, see last week’s market review note), as well as a list of their current one year support & resistance levels with the volume sentiment noted beneath it on the table.

There is an additional table beneath this table with each price level’s sentiment, as well as a typed text version below that is able to be copied & pasted.

Note that “NULL, 0:0*” values denote areas that each name has traded at (or gapped through, in some instances) but with limited volume data to work with from a comparison standpoint in terms of creating a ratio of buyers:sellers (or vice versa) or is the outlier above the highest/lowest level with price data.

Also, prices that do have a ratio of Buyers:Sellers (Sellers:Buyers) where the denominator is 0 are denoted with an asterisk “*” as well.

In the written lists of the price levels & volume sentiments the price levels that contain support & resistance levels are marked in BOLD.

Recall that at price extremes such as the highs that we have recently hit there will tend to be skewed data due to the small sample size & factor that into how you interpret each price level’s reported sentiment.

This is intended to serve as an additional tool, similar to a barometer to use during your due diligence process & is not meant to replace doing your own research & is not financial advice.    

Price Level:Volume Sentiment Analysis For SPY, The SPDR S&P 500 ETF

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is still below its all-time high & looks set to have its upper Bollinger Band expand soon after a week & a half of relative consolidation.

Checking their Average True Range (ATR) also shows signals of increasing volatility & their MACD so far through the week has not managed to break out bullishly, meaning it may bump the bottom of the signal line at best without a major upside catalyst.

CPI data on Friday is likely the only panacea at this rate, as earnings calls have begun to sound less and less optimistic vs. the recent quarters past.

It should also be noted that the next four support levels from SPY’s close are historically dominated by Sellers over the past ~3 years.

Given that the 10 & 50 Day moving averages are both in that list & moving in the manner that they are it’s a good time to review the strength/weakness of SPY’s support/resistance levels.

With that said, below are the support/resistance levels of SPY’s one year chart, along with their volume sentiments at each of the price levels that they’ve traded at over the past ~3 years.

Recall again that this is intended to be a barometer to aid in your research & due diligence and is not financial advice.

$675 – NULL – 0:0*, +0.75% From Current Price Level

$670 – Buyers – 2.5:1 – 0.00% From Current Price Level – All-Time High*

$665 – Buyers – 2.55:1, -0.74% From Current Price Level – Current Price Level & 10 Day Moving Average**

$660 – Buyers – 1.58:1, -1.49% From Current Price Level

$655 – Sellers – 2.4:1, -2.23% From Current Price Level – 50 Day Moving Average*

$650 – Sellers – 1.57:1, -2.98% From Current Price Level

$645 – Buyers – 4:1, -3.73% From Current Price Level

$640 – Buyers – 1.83:1, -4.47% From Current Price Level

$635 – Sellers – 2:1, -5.22% From Current Price Level

$630 – Sellers – 2:1, -5.97% From Current Price Level

$625 – Buyers – 1.2:1, -6.71% From Current Price Level

$620 – Buyers – 1.2:1, -7.46% From Current Price Level

$615 – Buyers – 1.2:1, -8.2% From Current Price Level

$610 – Buyers – 1.3:0*, -8.95% From Current Price Level

$605 – Buyers – 7:1, -9.7% From Current Price Level

$600 – Buyers – 9.33:1, -10.44% From Current Price Level, 200 Day Moving Average*

$595 – Buyers – 1.59:1, -11.19% From Current Price Level

$590 – Sellers – 1.28:1, -11.94% From Current Price Level

$585 – Buyers – 1.65:1, -12.68% From Current Price Level

$580 – Buyers – 1.67:1, -13.43% From Current Price Level

$575 – Sellers – 1.74:1, -14.18% From Current Price Level

$570 – Buyers – 1.27:1, -14.92% From Current Price Level

$565 – Buyers – 1.5:1, -15.67% From Current Price Level

$560 – Buyers – 1.14:1, -16.41% From Current Price Level

$555 – Buyers – 2.91:1, -17.16% From Current Price Level

$550 – Buyers – 2.48:1, -17.91% From Current Price Level

$545 – Buyers – 2.27:1, -18.65% From Current Price Level

$540 – Buyers – 1.15:1, -19.4% From Current Price Level

$535 – Buyers – 2.47:1, -20.15% From Current Price Level

$530 – Sellers – 1.33:1, -20.89% From Current Price Level

$525 – Buyers – 1:0*, -21.64% From Current Price Level

$520 – Buyers – 1.06:1, -22.38% From Current Price Level

$515 – Buyers – 1.82:1, -23.13% From Current Price Level

$510 – Buyers – 1.06:1, -23.88% From Current Price Level

$505 – Buyers – 1.92:1, -24.62% From Current Price Level

$500 – Sellers – 3.22:1, -25.37% From Current Price Level

$496 – Buyers – 4:1, -25.97% From Current Price Level

$492 – Sellers – 7.33:1, -26.56% From Current Price Level

$488 – Sellers – 1.73:1, -27.16% From Current Price Level

$484 – Buyers – 1.67:1, -27.76% From Current Price Level

$480 – Sellers – 1.06:1, -28.36% From Current Price Level

$476 – Buyers – 1.71:1, -28.95% From Current Price Level

$472 – Buyers – 2.78:1, -29.55% From Current Price Level

$468 – NULL – 0:0*, -30.15% From Current Price Level

$464 – Buyers – 1.86:1, -30.74% From Current Price Level

$460 – Buyers – 1.35:1, -31.34% From Current Price Level

$456 – Sellers – 2.29:1, -31.94% From Current Price Level

$452 – Buyers – 0.6:0*, -32.53% From Current Price Level

$448 – Buyers – 1.2:0*, -33.13% From Current Price Level

$444 – Buyers – 2:1, -33.73% From Current Price Level

$440 – Buyers – 2.33:1, -34.33% From Current Price Level

$436 – Buyers – 2.03:1, -34.92% From Current Price Level

$432 – Sellers – 1.5:1, -35.52% From Current Price Level

$428 – Buyers – 2:1, -36.12% From Current Price Level

$424 – Buyers – 1.09:1, -36.71% From Current Price Level

$420 – Buyers – 1.08:1, -37.31% From Current Price Level

$416 – Buyers – 1.03:1, -37.91% From Current Price Level

$412 – Buyers – 1.39:1, -38.5% From Current Price Level

$408 – Sellers – 2.88:1, -39.1% From Current Price Level

$404 – Buyers – 1.65:1, -39.7% From Current Price Level

$400 – Buyers – 1.66:1, -40.3% From Current Price Level

$396 – Buyers – 1.47:1, -40.89% From Current Price Level

$392 – Sellers – 11.17:1, -41.49% From Current Price Level

$388 – Buyers – 2.94:1, -42.09% From Current Price Level

$384 – Buyers – 2.16:1, -42.68% From Current Price Level

$380 – Buyers – 1.93:1, -43.28% From Current Price Level

$376 – Sellers – 2.93:1, -43.88% From Current Price Level

$372 – Sellers – 2.23:1, -44.48% From Current Price Level

$368 – Sellers – 1.78:1, -45.07% From Current Price Level

$364 – Sellers – 2.39:1, -45.67% From Current Price Level

$360 – Buyers – 2.33:1, -46.27% From Current Price Level

$356 – Sellers – 1.11:1, -46.86% From Current Price Level

$352 – Buyers – 1.6:1, -47.46% From Current Price Level

$348 – Buyers – 1.33:1, -48.06% From Current Price Level

$344 – Sellers – 0.7:0*, -48.65% From Current Price Level

$340 – Sellers – 2.3:0*, -49.25% From Current Price Level

Price Level:Volume Sentiment Analysis For QQQ, The Invesco QQQ Trust ETF

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF has been the one to watch of recent, as it appears that market participants will be broadly following it between the FOMC interest rate policies & the tech heavy components that it houses.

Last night’s session began closing Monday’s gap up, but there is still support to be had in the 10 day moving average, which will be a key area to watch in the coming weeks (see this weekend’s note referenced above).

Heightened volatility appears on the menu for QQQ in the coming week, which makes knowing the lay of the land from a support/resistance perspective all the more important.

Reference the tables below to accompany your research & aid in assessing your views on the strength/weakness of support/resistance levels.

$615 – NULL – 0:0*, +1.11% From Current Price Level

$610 – Buyers – 1.17:1, 0.29% From Current Price Level – All-Time High*

$605 – Buyers – 2.2:0*, -0.53% From Current Price Level – Current Price Level*

$600 – Buyers – 2.74:1, -1.35% From Current Price Level – 10 Day Moving Average*

$595 – Sellers – 1.17:1,-2.17% From Current Price Level

$590 – Buyers – 1.04:1, -3% From Current Price Level

$585 – Sellers – 3.14:1, -3.82% From Current Price Level – 50 Day Moving Average*

$580 – Buyers – 2.5:0*, -4.64% From Current Price Level

$575 – Buyers – 2.33:1, -5.46% From Current Price Level

$570 – Buyers – 6.88:1, -6.28% From Current Price Level

$565 – Sellers – 1.08:1, -7.11% From Current Price Level

$560 – Sellers – 1.26:1, -7.93% From Current Price Level

$555 – Buyers – 4.5:1, -8.75% From Current Price Level

$550 – Sellers – 1.36:1, -9.57% From Current Price Level

$545 – Buyers – 2:1, -10.39% From Current Price Level

$540 – Buyers – 1.2:0*, -11.22% From Current Price Level

$535 – Buyers – 6:1, -12.04% From Current Price Level

$530 – Buyers – 2.76:1, -12.86% From Current Price Level, 200 Day Moving Average*

$525 – Buyers – 1.29:1, -13.68% From Current Price Level

$520 – Buyers – 1.79:1, -14.5% From Current Price Level

$515 – Buyers – 1.05:1, -15.33% From Current Price Level

$510 – Sellers – 1.42:1, -16.15% From Current Price Level

$505 – Sellers – 1.61:1, -16.97% From Current Price Level

$500 – Buyers – 1.71:1, -17.79% From Current Price Level

$496 – Buyers – 1.33:1, -18.45% From Current Price Level

$492 – Sellers – 1.11:1, -19.11% From Current Price Level

$488 – Buyers – 4.6:1, -19.77% From Current Price Level

$484 – Buyers – 1.34:1, -20.42% From Current Price Level

$480 – Buyers – 1.58:1, -21.08% From Current Price Level

$476 – Buyers – 1.24:1, -21.74% From Current Price Level

$472 – Buyers – 1.93:1, -22.4% From Current Price Level

$468 – Sellers – 1.38:1, -23.05% From Current Price Level

$464 – Buyers – 1.35:1, -23.71% From Current Price Level

$460 – NULL – 0:0*, -24.37% From Current Price Level

$456 – Buyers – 2.5:1, -25.03% From Current Price Level

$452 – Buyers – 3.7:0*, -25.68% From Current Price Level

$448 – Sellers – 1.06:1, -26.34% From Current Price Level

$444 – Sellers – 2.68:1, -27% From Current Price Level

$440 – Sellers – 1.71:1, -27.66% From Current Price Level

$436 – Buyers – 2.7:0*, -28.32% From Current Price Level

$432 – Sellers – 3.5:0*, -28.97% From Current Price Level

$428 – Sellers – 1.5:0*, -29.63% From Current Price Level

$424 – NULL – 0:0*, -30.29% From Current Price Level

$420 – Buyers – 1.39:1, -30.95% From Current Price Level

$416 – NULL – 0:0*, -31.6% From Current Price Level

$412 – Sellers – 2.7:0*, -32.26% From Current Price Level

$408 – NULL – 0:0*, -32.92% From Current Price Level

Price Level:Volume Sentiment Analysis For IWM, The iShares Russell 2000 ETF

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF is having an interesting week, after hitting a new all-time high, but consolidating into what looks to be forming a diamond pattern.

Elevated volumes recently skew towards the declining side, which is something to keep closely in mind as well when watching the small cap index.

They enjoy a lot of Buyer dominated zones in the tables below from a support standpoint, but recall that they will likely trail-to-outdecline their larger index counterparts (from best-to-worst case scenario).

$256 – NULL – 0:0*, +4.77% From Current Price Level

$252 – NULL – 0:0*, +3.13% From Current Price Level, All-Time High*

$248 – NULL – 0:0*, +1.49% From Current Price Level

$244 – NULL – 0:0*, -0.14% From Current Price Level – Current Price Level & 10 Day Moving Average**

$240 – Buyers – 2.19:1, -1.78% From Current Price Level

$236 – Buyers – 1.56:1, -3.42% From Current Price Level – 50 Day Moving Average*

$232 – Sellers – 1.03:1, -5.05% From Current Price Level

$228 – Buyers – 1.58:1, -6.69% From Current Price Level

$224 – Buyers – 1.07:1, -8.33% From Current Price Level

$220 – Buyers – 2:1, -9.97% From Current Price Level

$216 – Buyers – 1.01:1, -11.6% From Current Price Level – 200 Day Moving Average*

$212 – Sellers – 1.2:1, -13.24% From Current Price Level

$208 – Buyers – 1.36:1, -14.88% From Current Price Level

$204 – Buyers – 1.49:1, -16.51% From Current Price Level

$200 – Buyers – 1.24:1, -18.15% From Current Price Level

$198 – Sellers – 1.29:1, -18.97% From Current Price Level

$196 – Sellers – 1.05:1, -19.79% From Current Price Level

$194 – Buyers – 1.85:1, -20.61% From Current Price Level

$192 – Buyers – 1.11:1, -21.42% From Current Price Level

$190 – Sellers – 1.87:1, -22.24% From Current Price Level

$188 – Sellers – 1.26:1, -23.06% From Current Price Level

$186 – Even – 1:1, -23.88% From Current Price Level

$184 – Buyers – 2.2:1, -24.7% From Current Price Level

$182 – Buyers – 3.85:1, -25.52% From Current Price Level

$180 – Sellers – 2.04:1, -26.34% From Current Price Level

$178 – Sellers – 1.82:1, -27.15% From Current Price Level

$176 – Sellers – 1.86:1, -27.97% From Current Price Level

$174 – Buyers – 2.33, -28.79% From Current Price Level

$172 – Sellers – 2.75:1, -29.61% From Current Price Level

$170 – Buyers – 1.2:1, -30.43% From Current Price Level

$168 – Buyers – 3.33:1, -31.25% From Current Price Level

$166 – Sellers – 2.1:1, -32.06% From Current Price Level

$164 – Buyers – 1.27:1, -32.88% From Current Price Level

$162 – Sellers – 2.2:1, -33.7% From Current Price Level

$160 – Buyers – 6.5:1, -34.52% From Current Price Level

$158 – Sellers – 2.5:1, -35.34% From Current Price Level

Price Level:Volume Sentiment Analysis For DIA, The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF also also showing signs of potentially following IWM into the diamond pattern emerging, but is still showing more resilience.

The spike in volume this past week that over doubled it’s prior year’s average weekly level was a sight to behold, but yesterday’s bearish session combined with Thursday’s shows that profit taking is abound, making any upside moves without strong advancing volume riskier than usual.

$472 – NULL – 0:0*, +0.78% From Current Price Level

$468 – NULL – 0:0*, -0.07% From Current Price Level, All-Time High & Current Price Level**

$464 – Buyers – 1.9:1, -0.93% From Current Price Level

$460 – Buyers – 2.36:1, -1.78% From Current Price Level – 10 Day Moving Average*

$456 – Buyers – 1.44:1, -2.63% From Current Price Level – 50 Day Moving Average*

$452 – Sellers – 1.1:1, -3.49% From Current Price Level

$448 – Buyers – 1.8:1, -4.34% From Current Price Level

$444 – Buyers – 2:1, -5.2% From Current Price Level

$440 – Buyers – 1.84:1, -6.05% From Current Price Level

$436 – Sellers – 1.65:1, -6.91% From Current Price Level

$432 – Buyers – 1.5:1, -7.76% From Current Price Level – 200 Day Moving Average*

$428 – Buyers – 1.4:1, -8.61% From Current Price Level

$424 – Buyers – 1.5:1, -9.47% From Current Price Level

$420 – Buyers – 1.5:1, -10.32% From Current Price Level

$416 – Buyers – 1.14:1, -11.18% From Current Price Level

$412 – Sellers – 1.25:1, -12.03% From Current Price Level

$408 – Sellers – 1.9:1, -12.88% From Current Price Level

$404 – Buyers – 6.67:1, -13.74% From Current Price Level

$400 – Buyers – 2:1, -14.59% From Current Price Level

$396 – Buyers – 2.22:1, -15.45% From Current Price Level

$392 – Sellers – 1.07:1, -16.3% From Current Price Level

$388 – Buyers – 2:1, -17.15% From Current Price Level

$384 – Buyers – 1.47:1, -18.01% From Current Price Level

$380 – Buyers – 1.09:1, -18.86% From Current Price Level

$376 – Sellers – 1.46:1, -19.72% From Current Price Level

$372 – Buyers – 1.09:1, -20.57% From Current Price Level

$368 – Buyers – 1.32:1, -21.42% From Current Price Level

$364 – Buyers – 2.5:1, -22.28% From Current Price Level

$360 – Buyers – 1.63:1, -23.13% From Current Price Level

$356 – NULL – 0:0*, -23.99% From Current Price Level

$352 – Buyers – 0.6:0*, -24.84% From Current Price Level

$348 – Buyers – 1.18:1, -25.7% From Current Price Level

$344 – NULL – 0:0*, -26.55% From Current Price Level

$340 – Buyers – 14:1, -27.4% From Current Price Level

$336 – Buyers – 1.31:1, -28.26% From Current Price Level

$332 – Sellers – 1.15:1, -29.11% From Current Price Level

$328 – Buyers – 2.25:1, -29.97% From Current Price Level

$324 – Buyers – 1.63:1, -30.82% From Current Price Level

$320 – Even – 1:1, -31.67% From Current Price Level

$316 – Buyers – 1.16:1, -32.57% From Current Price Level

$312 – Sellers – 1.15:1, -33.38% From Current Price Level

$308 -Sellers – 1.26:1, -34.24% From Current Price Level

$304 – Sellers – 2:1, -35.09% From Current Price Level

$300 – Buyers – 1.32:1, -35.94% From Current Price Level

$296 – Sellers – 1.44:1, -36.8% From Current Price Level

$292 – Sellers – 1.61:1, -37.65% From Current Price Level

$288 – Sellers – 1.5:1, -38.51% From Current Price Level

$284 – Sellers – 1.6:1, -39.36% From Current Price Level

$280 – Sellers – 6:1, -40.21% From Current Price Level

$276 – Sellers – 2.29:1, -41.07% From Current Price Level

$272 – Sellers – 0.3:0*, -41.92% From Current Price Level

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF added +1.74% this week, while the VIX closed at 20.78, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-1.31% & an implied one month move range of +/-6.01%.

Their RSI is just above the neutral 50-mark & sits currently at 53.42, while their MACD is still bearish.

Volumes were +39.15% higher than the prior year’s average (91,420,000 vs. 65,697,291), with Thursday’s declining session leading the week in terms of highest volume level.

Monday the week began on a slightly optimistic note, as a bullish harami pattern formed with Friday’s massive declining candle, but on one of the lowest volume sessions of the week, indicating hesitency on the part of market participants.

Tuesday opened lower, tested lower to down by the support of the 50 day moving average, before climbing higher to take a stab at the 10 day moving average’s resistance & closed higher than it opened, but still down -0.12% day-over-day.

Wednesday opened on a gap up in-line with the 10 day moving average’s support, temporarily broke out above it intraday, but ulimately closed lower than it opened after making a run down below the $659/share level.

Volumes also remained lackluster.

Thrusday again opened in-line with the 10 day moving average’s resistance, temporarily broke out above it, before Sellers stepped in majorly & forced a -0.68% decline on the strongest volume of the week.

A mixture of pessimism & profit taking led to the day’s decline, as was noted by Friday’s session, where a down open resulted in a gain of +0.57% that closed in-line with the 10 day moving average’s resistance.

Heading into a new week the upside case revolves around SPY’s price first being supported by the 10 DMA & establishing some advancing volume as a foundation to make a run at their all-time high of $673.95/share.

The consolidation case looks a lot like what we saw last week, where SPY oscillated between the 10 & 50 day moving averages awaiting an upside/downside catalyst.

The downside case gets interesting should the support of the 50 DMA break down, as that & the next support levels below are still relatively untested & the following level of support sits in a price zone favored by Sellers historically (1.25:1).

This leaves $617.58/share as the gatekeeper separating SPY from a support zone established from a late 2024/early 2025 consolidation range.

The real concerning issue at hand is that this then brings the 200 Day moving average’s support into the picture, which opens up the potential risk of a breakdown in the long-term trendline.

SPY has support at the $653.53 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $653.17 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $638.08 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.25:1) & $617.58/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.8:1) price levels, with resistance at the $665.35 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $673.95/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF advanced +2.45% for the week, faring the strongest of the major index ETFs.

Their RSI is 56.08 & trending higher, while their MACD remains bearish following the previous Friday’s declines.

Volumes were +57.78% higher than the previous year’s average (68,176,000 vs. 43,210,438), with two of the top three highest days being declining volume, which is something to consider when trying to ascertain the current market sentiment.

Monday the week opened similar to SPY with a bullish harami pattern forming with Friday’s large bearish engulfing candle, setting the tone for a similar consolidation range.

Tuesday opened on a gap lower, retreated down to take a shot thought the $590/share level, but found support at $590.13/share.

Wednesday opened on a gap higher, temporarily broke out above the resistance of the 10 day moving average, but saw profit taking force QQQ below $600/share temporarily, and ultimately close lower than the session opened.

Thursday saw QQQ open on another gap higher, test a little higher intraday, before profit taking & risk aversion forced prices lower on the day down -0.68%.

The week wound down on the highest volume session of the week, where QQQ opened on a gap down & was able to trudge higher to close just above the support of the 10 DMA.

Much like SPY, QQQ’s near-term future relies heavily on the strength of the support of the 10 DMA, as without it making another run at their all-time high is impossible.

As has been noted several times over the past months, there will also need to be more advancing volume to support any runs at all-time highs as well if they are to remain sustainable, with QQQ’s current high water mark being $613.18, a +1.53% advance from Friday’s closing price.

The consolidation case looks like a continuation of last week, where QQQ oscillates around & in between the 10 & 50 day moving averages.

QQQ’s downside case is also similar to SPY’s in that the 50 day moving average’s support is in focus & climbing higher.

The $582.64 mark is also going to be of importance as a support level, as should that give out QQQ enters a Seller dominated zone historically at $575-579.99, which has one Buyer zone buffering it from the Seller zones of $560-564.99 & $565-569.99/share, which is prices decline to those levels a bearish head & shoulders pattern will emerge.

QQQ has support at the $603.00 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $590.13 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $586.98 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $582.64/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2:0*) price levels, with resistance at the $613.18/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF gained +2.36% last week, as the small cap index was second fiddle to the tech-heavy NASDAQ.

Their RSI is trending down towards the neutral 50-mark & currently sits at 51.84, while their MACD has been bearish & unable to break out above the signal line since the third week of September.

Volumes were +44.34% higher than the previous year’s average (47,022,000 vs. 32,578,088), which should be cause for concern given that the two highest volume sessions were the declines of Thursday & Friday.

Much like SPY & QQQ, IWN started the week off forming a bullish harami pattern with a giant declining candle from the previous Friday’s session on the week’s lightest volume, but was able to close above the 10 day moving average’s support.

Tuesday opened on a gap lower, tested lower to almost $240/share, before ripping through the 10 DMA again, making a run at the $250/share level & ultimately forming a bullish engulfing pattern day-over-day.

Volumes remained underwhelming & Wednesday confirmed that there was indeed much in the way of concern among market participants.

Wednesday opened on a gap up above IWM’s all-time high, setting a new all-time high at $252.77/share, but forming a high wave doji for the day, indicating that there was a tight battle between bulls & bears that resulted in agreement being made at ~$250.30-36 based on open & closing prices.

It should also be noted that although subtle, Wednesday’s session did close lower than it opened, setting the stage for the end of the week’s slide.

Tursday saw things begin to unwind for IWM, as a gap up open quickly turned into profit taking mania that saw IWM temporarily break down below the support of the 10 day moving average, and market participants were eager to take risk off of the table.

Friday the small cap names also had a tough time, opening on a gap lower & on the highest volume of the week being unable to break above the resistance of the 10-day moving average which they’d just recently been soaring above on the highest volume of the week.

Everybody was looking for the exit & capital preservation came to the fore walking into the weekend.

Heading into a new week the upside case is strangely similar to SPY & QQQ’s, IWM needs to break above the 10 DMA, establish support with the help of some increased advancing volume & then make a run at the all-time high.

The consolidation case at this stage will feature oscillations between the 10 & 50 day moving averages, awaiting an upside or downside catalyst; if the 10 or the 50 DMA become favored & oscillated around you may find a clue about what’s coming next, particularly should they spread apart.

The downside case for IWM becomes interesting, as zooming out & taking in the 1 year daily chart there could be a head & shoulders pattern emerging with Wednesday being the head & there are some interesting gaps left unfilled from since June, making the moving averages an important place to focus.

The 10 DMA has already broken down, making the 50 DMA the next most important, particularly as they become closer together & a trend reversal occurs.

The way that IWM advances more slowly in almost creeping oscillations higher helps them by providing more support levels to rely upon vs. SPY or QQQ, but if there is a shock in the larger two indexes there is likely to be issues for their small cap counterparts.

IWM has support at the $242.35 (Volume Sentim8ent: Buyers, 0.4:0*), $239.79 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1), $237.56/5 (*2, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1) & $237.33/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1) price levels, with resistance at the $245.17 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $248.48 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $252.77/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF had the weakest week, climbing only +1.52%.

Their RSI has just crossed back above the neutral 50 mark & currently sits at 52.19, while their MACD is still bearish, having spent much of October that way.

Volumes were +100.98% higher than the prior year’s average (7,376,000 vs. 3,670,040), which is something tobehold & ponder, given that most of it came on Friday’s squeeze into the weekend advancing session.

Monday the week kicked off similarly to the other three majors, forming a bullish harami pattern with Friday’s candle on volumes that were lackluster vs the other sessions of the week.

Tuesday resulted in a bullish engulfing pattern that temporarily was able to break out above the resistance of the 10 DMA, but that also temporarily brokedown through the support of the 50 day moving average to the downside, as clearly some pro taken based on the week’s third highest volume.

Wednesday opened on a gap up, broke out temporarily above the $465/share level, but was unable to maintain the gains & broke towards $460/share but managed to settle lower than it opened & +0.00% on the day.

Thursday the cracksbegin to emerge though, as the week’s second highest volume saw DIA open just above the 10 DMA & proceed to slump below it & make a run down towards the 50 day moving average’s support.

Moving into a new week, the upside case is similar to the three majors above, sustained higher volume from advancing sessions is needed to push DIA back to new all-time highs, and a bearish pendant may be forming from the past month, which to overcome will require a strong push of volume to overcome the 10 DMA’s resistance.

The consolidation case is also the same as those above, look for oscillations between the 10 & 50 MAs until an upside or downside catalyst causes a breakout.

If the two moving averages begin to diverge you’ll be wise to follow which one price hugs most for clues into what comes next.

The downside case is also similar, but hinges upon if the “buy and hold” blue chip names see a bank run, where the 50 day moving average’s support comes into play as an important support levels, as if it doesn’t hold up the 10 DMA is already look at turning bearishly through it, sending DIA’s price lower in the short-term.

After the 50 day moving averagee, the gatekeeper support level to potential trouble is the $448.85/share level, as should that break down, the $436-439.99/share & the 440-443.99/share zones are both skewed towards Sellers historically, which also calls the long-term trendline into play, currently at $432.03.

DIA has support at the $456.61 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $454.41 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $448.55 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.09:1) & $445.13/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.24:1) price levels, with resistance at the $462.33 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $470.22/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday kicks the week off with U.S. Leading Economic Indicators at 10 am.

Cleveland-Cliffs reports earnings before Monday’s opening bell, followed by BOK Financial, Cadence Bank, Crown, RLI, Steel Dynamics, W.R. Berkley, Wintrust Financial & Zions Bancorp after the session’s close.

There is no major economic data due for release on Tuesday

Tuesday morning’s earnings calls include 3M, Badger Meter, Balchem, Coca-Cola, Community Financial System, Danaher, Elevance Health, Equifax, Forestar, GATX, GE Aerospace, General Motors, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Mattel, NASDAQ, Northrop Grumman, PACCAR, Pentair, Philip Morris International, PulteGroup, Quest Diagnostics, RTX & Valmont, followed by NetFlix, Agree Realty, Canadian National Railway, Capital One, Cathay Bancorp, Chubb, East West Banc, EQT, Fulton Financial, Manhattan Associates, Matador Resources, National Bank, Omnicom, Pathward Financial, Pegasystems, PennyMac, Texas Instruments, Vicor & Western Alliance Bancorp after the closing bell. 

Wednesday will also be quiet on the economic data front.

Amphenol, AT&T, Avery Dennison, BankUnited, Boston Scientific, CME Group, GE Vernova, Healthcare Services Group, Hilton, Lennox International, Lithia Motors, M/I Homes, Moody’s, Northern Trust, OFG Bancorp, Old National Bancorp, PROG Holdings, Rogers Communications, Taylor Morrison Home, Teledyne Technologies, Thermo Fisher, Travel + Leisure, UniFirst, United Community Banks, Vertiv, Wabtec & Winnebago all report earnings Wednesday morning, followed by Alcoa, ASGN, Banc of California, CACI, Century Communities, Churchill Downs, Core Labs, Crown Castle, Equity Lifestyle Properties, Essential Properties Realty Trust, First American Financial, FirstEnergy, Globe Life, Goosehead Insurance, Graco, Helix Energy, Hexcel, International Business Machines, ICON, Kaiser Aluminum, Kinder Morgan, Knight-Swift, Lam Research, Las Vegas Sands, Lending Club, Medpace, Molina Healthcare, O’Reilly Automotive, Oceaneering International, Packaging, Plexus, QuantumScape, Raymond James, Reliance, Ribbon Communications, Robert Half, SAP, SEI Investments, Selective Insurance, Sonoco Products, Tesla, Texas Capital, United Rentals, Viking Therapeutics, Waste Connections, WD-40, WesBanco & Wyndham Hotels & Resorts after the closing bell.  

Initial Jobless Claims data comes out Thursday at 8:30 am, followed by Existing Home Sales at 10 am.

Thursday morning begins with Allegion, AllianceBernstein, American Airlines, Ardagh Metal Packaging, Atlantic Union Bancshares, AutoNation, Blackstone, Bread Financial, Brunswick, Carpenter Technology, CBRE Group, CenterPoint, Darling Ingredients, Dover, Dow, Euronet, Expro Group, First Bancorp, FirstService, Freeport-McMoRan, FTI Consulting, Garrett Motion, Gentherm, Hasbro, Honeywell, IMAX, Integer Holdings, Iridium Communications, Lazard, Lindsay, Millrose Properties, Mobileye Global, MSC Industrial, Nokia, Old Republic, PG&E, Pool, Popular, Roper Technologies, Ryder System, Simply Good Foods, Sonic Automotive, STMicroelectronics, T-Mobile US, TechnipFMC, Teck Resources, Textron, Tractor Supply, TransUnion, TRI Pointe Homes, Union Pacific, Valero Energy, Valley National, Visteon & West Pharmaceutical Services on the earnings front, before Newmont, Alaska Air, Associated Banc-Corp, Baker Hughes, Community Health, Coursera, Customers Bancorp, Deckers Outdoors, Digital Realty Trust, EastGroup, Elme Communities, Enova International, First Financial Bancorp, Ford Motor, Healthpeak Properties, Hilltop Holdings, Intel, Kinsale Capital, Knowles, MaxLinear, McGrath RentCorp, Minerals Technologies, Nextracker, Norfolk Southern, Phillips Edison, Sallie Mae, SS&C Technologies Holdings, VeriSign, Western Union, World Kinect & WSFS Financial host their calls after the session’s close.  

Friday begin with Consumer Price Index, CPI Year-over-Year, Core CPI & Core CPI Year-over-Year data at 8:30 am, before S&P Flash U.S. Services PMI & S&P Flash U.S. Manufacturing PMI data at 9:45 am & Consumer Sentiment (final) data at 10 am.

Booz Allen Hamilton, First Hawaiian, Flagstar Financial, General Dynamics, Gentex, HCA, Illinois Tool Works, Moog, Procter & Gamble, Sanofi & Stellar Bank all report earnings before Monday’s opening bell.

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF dipped -0.28% last week, while the VIX closed at 15.29, indicating a one day implied move range of +/-0.96% & a one month implied move range of +/-4.42%.

Their RSI is trending towards the overbought 70 mark & is currently at 63.05, while their MACD is bearish.

Volumes were +16.87% higher than the prior year’s average (74,194,000 vs. 63,483,745), which is cause for concern given that three of the week’s sessions resulted in declines.

Monday the week kicked off on a note of muted enthusiasm, as the session did not produce noteworthy volume but formed a bullish engulfing candle pattern with the previous Friday.

Tuesday the theme continued, as a bearish harami pattern emerged for SPY on the week’s second highest volume, setting the stage for the remainder of the week.

Wednesday opened lower & declined down to temporarily break through the 10 day moving average’s support, signaling that the strength in the sentiment behind the short-term trend is beginning to falter.

Thursday confirmed this when a gap down open below the 10 DMA was unable to recover to test its resistance & a spinning top candle emerged from the wreckage on the week’s strongest volume.

Friday opened on a gap up & the week ended on a +0.57% advance heading into the weekend on lackluster volume.

While SPY managed to close just above the 10 DMA’s support, the low participation rate among investors signals that there is quite a bit of uneasiness emerging in the market.

Heading into the new week the upside case remains as it has been for months now, in order to continue seeing new all time highs we will need strong advancing volume that is consistent, particularly now that the 10 day moving average is beginning to show signs of weakness.

The consolidation case looks a bit like what we witnessed beginning last week, where SPY will oscillated around the 10 day moving average awaiting an upside or downside catalyst, which this week may come in the form of a Government shutdown in the US, earnings calls that show weakness among the consumer (Nike, food companies etc…) or data that hints at employment troubles, which is something market participants have had on their mind of recent following the FOMC interest rate decision from two weeks ago.

To the downside the first area to watch is the 50 day moving average in the event that the 10 DMA breaks down, as it is currently in a price zone with limited historic data on volume sentiment making it a wild card.

Should it break down, the $638.08/share support levels is in a zone that is historically Seller oriented (1.24:1), which may find SPY being led down to $617.58/share.

This brings the support zone of $605.47-607.90/share into focus, as they are the top two points of a consolidation range of November 2024-February 2025.

The table below has more details on SPY’s historic volume sentiment.

SPY has support at the $660.98 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $642.81 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $638.08 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.24:1) & $617.58/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.8:1) price levels, with resistance at the $662.37 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $667.34/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF fell -0.56% last week, having the second worst week of the major index ETFs.

Their RSI is trending back towards the overbought 70 mark, currently at 64.18, while their MACD is bullish, but flat & their histogram is showing signs of weakness.

Volumes were +42.07% higher than the previous year’s average (59,092,000 vs. 41,409,402), which like SPY is cause for concern due to the declining sessions of the week & the breakdown of the 10 day moving average’s implied weakness.

Monday the week kicked off advancing higher on the week’s third highest volume, which was the highest advancing volume session.

Tuesday showed the same weakness as SPY, when QQQ saw profits taken & a flight to safety by market participants on the week’s second highest volume.

Wednesday the declines continued & the 10 day moving average’s support was tested, but was able to hold up & still serve as support.

Thursday opened on a gap down to below the 10 day moving average, signaling that there was a lack of faith in the short-term moving average.

The day tested to below the $590/share level, but was able to temporarily break above the 10 DMA’s resistance & closed higher than it opened, all on the week’s highest volume, indicating that there was uncertainty & people are feeling uneasy.

Friday opened in-line with the 10 DMA, tested lower to the $590-level, but was able to rally higher to close above the 10 DMA, but the weak volume behind the move signals that there is still quite a bit of uncertainty & fear in the market.

Heading into the new week QQQ’s case looks much like SPY’s & is similar on the upside as its been for months, to continue making new all-time highs we will need to see continued, sustained higher advancing volume as confirmation that there is confidence behind these moves up.

The consolidation case remains similar as well, where we will watch the see QQQ oscillate around the 10 DMA & possibly between it & the 50 DMA while awaiting an upside or downside catalyst.

In terms of a move downwards the 50 DMA will also be an area of importance in the coming week(s) as it resides in a Seller dominated zone historically, and in the event that it breaks down the next support levels is the gatekeeper to the $560-569.99/share price zones which are also historically in favor of Seller activity, which leads us to $558.19 & $551.04.

The latter is also in a Seller zone & is the gatekeeper to the gap up that’s gone unfilled from June of 2025, which is not the most supportive of near-to-mid-term pictures.

QQQ has support at the $595.01 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $582.64 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2:0*), $575.26 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.3:1) & $573.96/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.79:1) price levels, with resistance at the $596.30 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $602.87/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF declined -0.67% last week, as the small cap index was the least favored among the four majors.

Their RSI is trending higher towards overbought conditions & currently sits at 59.27, while their MACD is bearish following Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday’s declines.

Volumes were +24.39% higher than the prior year’s average (39,332,000 vs. 31,620, 876), which shares similar concerns with SPY & QQQ in a rare overlap between the three indexes, except IWM’s advancing session on Monday was the strongest volume performance of the week.

Monday the week opened lower, tested lower, but found legs & rallied on the week’s highest volume to close just below the $245/share level after temporarily crossing above it.

Tuesday opened at $245.01 & ran up as high as $247.18, a new all-time high, before profit taking sank IWM’s ship & forced decline heading into the close on the week’s second highest volume.

Wednesday the pain continued for IWM & the small caps, as the high end of the day didn’t even make it to $245 & it declined down to within striking distance of the support of the 10 day moving average.

Thursday the wheels came off & IWM opened on a gap down below the 10 day moving average’s resistance, tested as low as $237.55/share, but was able torecover to close below the 10 DMA but higher than its opening price of the day.

Friday was relatively quiet, as the week’s lowest volume session opened higher & gained +0.86% heading into the weekend, but was unable to close above the 10 day moving average’s resistance, indicating that the near-term trendline is losing power.

Heading into the new week the upside case is the same as SPY & QQQ’s, but is also stronger if they’re also reaching new all-time highs, as IWM tends to follow them from a slightly slower pace & the market is relatively in a full court press.

The consolidation case also slightly hinges on the other three major indexes, but it follows the logic of oscillating around the 10 DMA & in between it & the 50 DMA as it draws nearer & we await an upside or downside catalyst.

To the downside, the 50 DMA is the first major test given that it is going to continue marching higher for some time& setting a resistance levels wherever it settles when price is able to climb high enough to catch it.

The $226.07-228.90 zone is going to be important for support, particularly as the $224-227.99/share price zone is the weakest Buyer dominated level aside from the $232-235.99/share zone, which increases the likelihood of a breakdown once price enters it.

In the event that prices decline that far, the 200 day moving average enters the picture, and the long-term trend line is going to become a more important part of the near-term outlook based on IWM’s historic performance.

IWM has support at the $239.79 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1), $237.55 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1), $230.29 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.27:1) & $228.90/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.27:1) price levels, with resistance at the $241.41 (Volume Sentiment: ), $242.35 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 0.4:0*) $247.18/share (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF stumbled -0.14%, having the best week of the majors.

Their RSI is climbing higher at 61.4, while their MACD is currently bearish but flat.

Volumes were +35.2% higher than the prior year’s average levels (4,674,000 vs. 3,457,012), which is problematic given the top three highest volume sessions came on declines.

DIA’s week began on a bullish engulfing candle pattern, but it was on the week’s lowest volume & it showed that there was appetite to test the support of the 10 day moving average, which means folks were getting antsy.

The next day opened higher, hit a new all-time high at $467.00, but steadily declined on the highest volume of the week throughout the rest of the session as market participants took profits down from the table.

Wednesday the theme continued with DIA being unable to break above $465/share & closing in-line with the supporat of the 10 day moving average.

Thursday the cracks began to show in the blue chip index, as DIA opened on a gap down below the 10 day moving average, on the week’s second highest volume.

Friday the week ended on an underwhelming attempt at optimism, with a gap up open in-line with the 10 MDA that dipped lower before climbing higher to close as a spinning top, indicating that there was still more indecision among market participants & that conviction was still among the missing.

Heading into the new week the upside case is the same as all of the three above, without sustainable increased volume levels to the upside confidence looks to be lacking in this current environment, making further upside moves look untrustworthy.

The consolidation case features oscillations around the 10 DMA & possibly between the 10 & 50DMA’s as they draw nearer to one another.

To the downside, all eyes go to the 50 DMA as well, followed by the zone between $445-445.28/share, as should that break down DIA enters a Seller dominated zone atop another Seller zone that begins at $436/share, making the 200 day moving average then within striking distance.

DIA has support at the $460.97 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $450.53 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.9:1), $448.70 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.09:1) & $445.28/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.24:1) price levels, with resistance at the $463.41 (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) & $467.00/share (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday the week begins with Pending Home Sales data at 10 am.

Carnival reports earnings Monday morning before the session opens, followed by Jefferies, Progress Software & Vail Resorts after the closing bell.

S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (20 Cities) data comes out at 9 am Tuesday, before Chicago Business Barometer (PMI) data at 9:45 am and Job Openings & Consumer Confidence data at 10 am.

Tuesday morning begins with earnings from Lamb Weston, Paychex & United Natural Foods, before Nike reports after the closing bell.

Wednesday morning features ADP Employment data at 8:15 am, S&P Final U.S. Manufacturing PMI data at 9:45 am, and Construction Spending & ISM Manufacturing data at 10 am.

Acuity, Cal-Maine Foods, Conagara & RPM Inc. all report earnings before Wednesday’s opening bell, before Levi Strauss reports after the session’s close.

Initial Jobless Claims data comes out Thursday at 8:30 am, followed by Factory Orders data at 10 am.

Thursday morning features earnings from AngioDynamics.

Friday ends the week with U.S. Employment Report, U.S. Unemployment Rate, U.S. Hourly Wages & Hourly Wages Year-over-Year data at 8:30 am, before S&P Final U.S. Services PMI data at 9:45 am & ISM Services data at 10 am & there are no major earnings reports scheduled for release.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***

SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF gained +1.57% last week, while the VIX closed at 14.76, indicating an implied one day move range of +/-0.93% & a one month implied move range of +/-4.27%.

Their RSI has recently begun to downtrend from near overbought levels, currently sitting at 67.74, while their MACD is bullish, but waning & signaling that it may be a short-term signal cross & a “dolphin” situation.

Volumes were +12.07% higher than the previous year’s average levels (70,000,000 vs. 62,458,640), which helped SPY continue higher to set another all-time high on Friday.

Monday the week opened up on a note of cautious optimism following a big risk-off Friday session, forming a bullish harami star with Friday’s candle, on weak volume as market participants were still feeling skeptical.

Tuesday saw additional muted volume & slight gains.

Wednesday opened on a gap up with the highest volume of the week, accounting for much of the week’s gains, but it also flashed a warning signal as the session closed lower than it opened, an indication of unease & near-term profit taking.

Thursday also saw another gap up open & SPY continued to climb higher throughout the day, but Friday saw reality come creeping back into the marketplace.

Friday’s session produced the second highest volume of the week, and flashed warning signs as it formed a bearish harami cross with Thursday’s session’s candle & there was a clear risk-off sentiment & profits taken for SPY.

The session’s high was unable to breach the $660/share mark.

Heading into a new week the upside case continues on as it has for months now, in order to see continued new all-time highs there will need to be consistent, elevated advancing volume.

Last week’s volume levels were a step in the correct direction, but there will need to be continued higher levels in order to keep SPY marching higher.

The consolidation case is likely to see the $660/share level be significant mentally & price may be held up & range bound while the 10 day moving average catches up to price, before price oscillating around it awaiting the upside or downside catalyst (likely to be Wednesday, courtesy of the FOMC).

The downside case still hinges on the strength of support from the 50 day moving average, partcularly as it continues climbing higher & is approaching their second support levels ($639.85).

If those give out, all eyes go to $619.29/share & if that is unable to provide SPY with support then $609.59/share comes into play.

There is historic Buyer sentiment at that level (3.83:1 over the past ~3 years) which is helpful, but there are Seller zones to pass through on the way down that lead SPY to that support zone of $609.59-607.15.

The table below outlines SPY’s historic volume sentiment & can be used to assess the strength/weakness of support/resistance levels in retests.

SPY has support at the $649.18 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $639.85 (Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.25:1), $636.82 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.25:1) & $619.29/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.8:1) price levels, with resistance at the $659.11/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

QQQ, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF advanced +1.84% for the week, as the tech-heavy index was the favorite among the major four indexes.

Their RSI is trending towards overbought territory, currently sitting at 66.17, while their MACD is bullish.

Volumes were +16.26% higher than the prior year’s average (47,038,000 vs. 40,458,960), which was able to keep QQQ grinding higher, but the week still had elements of risk awareness.

Monday closed lower than it opened, forming a bearish harami with an upper shadow that showed that there was still a bit of upside sentiment in the air.

Tuesday opened on a gap up, but again closed lower than it opened as it seemed that profits were being taken quickly to mitigate risk near these all-time highs.

Wednesday also opened on a gap higher following Oracle’s earnings report Tuesday night, but quickly saw profits taken & the session also closed lower than it opened, only ganing +0.03% for the day.

This cautious outlook continued on into Thursday, as QQQ closed the day up +0.58% & the day closed as a dragonfly doji, indicating that there was potentially going to be more room to run higher.

Friday the week wound down on a gap up open, but indecision was abound & QQQ closed as a spinning top,shy of the $590/share mark.

Moving into the new week the upside case remains the same as it has been for months now, in order to continue hitting new all-time highs there will need to be increased & consistent advancing volume.

The consolidation case features QQQ oscillating around the 10 day moving average & between it & the 50 day moving average as that draws nearer while awaiting an upside/downside catalyst (also, likely to come Wednesday courtsey of the FOMC).

To the downside, historic volume sentiment (shown in the table below) has shown increased Seller pressure in the past year near these prices, which if the support of the 50 day moving average gives out would help guide prices down to re-test the $558.84 & $6551.68/share support levels.

While both of those reside in a Buyer zone (6.25:1 over the past year), should they fail QQQ enters another Seller zone (1.28:1), and will begin to look to close the window from the gap in late June.

QQQ has support at the $583.32 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2:0*), $576.82 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.3:1), $574.63 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.79:1) & $567.96/share (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Sellers, 1.28:1) price levels, with resistance at the $587.86/share (All-Time High, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF added +0.24%, as the small cap index had the weakest week of the four majors.

Their RSI is trending back towards neutral, currently at 62.35, while their MACD is set to bearishly cross the signal line within the beginning of the week.

Volumes were +22.61% higher than the prior year’s average (38,106,000 vs. 31,078,080), which should raise eyebrows given that the highest volume session of the week was Friday’s declining sessions & two of the other sessions were also days of decline.

Monday the week opened on a gap higher & sparked optimism with a dragonfly doji candle, but it should be noted that this was the weakest move of the week by volume.

Tuesday opened on a gap lower, retested down the 10 day moving average’s support, but was able to hover above it heading into the close, as profits from the two prior sessions were yanked out of IWM.

Wednesday opened slightly higher & made a push higher, but ultimately crashed down to retest the 10 DMA’s support again, briefly breaking below it, before ultimately closing above it but down -0.18%.

Thursday opened in-line with the 10 day moving average, but was able to rally throughout the session to close +1.85% higher on the day, on the week’s second highest volume, which led to Friday’s highest volume of the week risk-off profit taking session that declined -1.02%.

As highlighted in prior weeks, the upside case for IWM echos that of SPY & IWM, except it also hinges upon the performance & enthusiasm behind the larger cap indexes, as with valuations as high as they are smaller cap names are less favored to their larger peers.

Their consolidation case looks set to osillate around the 10 day moving average while we await an upside/downside catalyst.

To the downside, IWM does have a good deal of support levels between $225.37-229.55, including the 50 day moving average at $226.95 (and climbing higher).

In the event that that support zone listed above breaks down, the $212.90/share level will be a key place to focus on, given there are two support points there in the past year & it is in a Seller oriented zone, historically, which may be cause for further concern.

IWM has support at the $236.78 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.1:1), $229.55 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.27:1), $226.95 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.09:1) & $226.71/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 1.09:1) price levels, with resistance at the $240.47 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 0.4:0*), $240.93 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 0.4:0*) & $243.04/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 0.4:0*) price levels.

DIA, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF climbed +0.95% for the week.

Their RSI is trending back towards the neutral 50-mark, sitting currently at 60.88, while their MACD is losing steam on the histogram, looking set to cross the signal line in the next few days.

Volumes were +53.31% higher than the prior year’s average (5,184,000 vs. 3,381,400), which should prove interesting as there were more advancing than declining sessions.

Monday the week opened up in line with the 10 day moving average, tested lower, but ultimately advanced +0.27% on the day.

Tuesday opened in a similar range, tested lower briefly before powering higher to close up +0.4% on particularly strong volume.

Wednesday opened lower, but profits were taken & the session drifted lower throughout the day, dipping below the support of the 10 DMA briefly, but closing in-line with it.

Thursday DIA delivered the best volume performance of the week & risk was back in fashion as DIA closed +1.31% for the day.

Friday is where things began to become more bleak & uncertainty had clearly begun to spread, as DIA opened lower & closed the day as a bearish harami pattern on the weakest volume of the week.

Heading into a new week that will be an important area to watch for the blue chip index.

The upside case for DIA remains as it has been & similar to SPY & QQQ, if there can be consistent advancing volume to support higher prices the blue chip buy & hold index can continue to roll higher.

In the event of complacency & consolidation, look for DIA to oscillate around the 10 day moving average &449.98/share price level while awaiting a catalyst to the upside/downside.

To the downside, the 50 day moving average is creeping higher towards the price, and will be important to watch in the coming week(s) as a support level that may become resistance, as it takes 5x longer to move than the 10 DMA & may signal extended periods of decline.

Should support break down & DIA drop into the $443.99-436/share range there is Seller pressure over the past ~3 years, as shown on the table below, which may force price down towards the long-term trendline.

DIA has support at the $456.64 (10 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*), $449.98 (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.09:1), $448.09 (50 Day Moving Average, Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.09:1) & $446.55/share (Volume Sentiment: Buyers, 2.24:1) price levels, with resistance at the $462.32/share (Volume Sentiment: NULL, 0:0*) price levels.

The Week Ahead

Monday the week kicks off with the Empire State Manufacturing Survey data at 8:30 am.

Hain Capital reports earnings Monday before the opening bell, followed by Dave & Busters after the closing bell.

U.S. Retail Sales, Retail Sales Minus Autos, Import Price Index & Import Price minus Fuel data is scheduled for release Tuesday at 8:30 am before Industrial Production & Capacity Utlization data at 9:15 am & Business Inventories & Home Builder Confidence Index data at 10 am.

Ferguson reports earnings before Tuesday’s opening bell.

Wednesday promises fun, with Housing Starts & Building Permits data at 8:30 am, before the much anticipated FOMC Interest Rate Decision at 2pm & Fed Chair Powell’s Press Conference at 2:30 pm.

Crack Barrel Old Country Store & General Mills report earnings before Wednesday’s opening bell, before Bullish reports after the session’s close.

Initial Jobless Claims & The Philadeplhia Fed Manufacturing Survey data come out Thursday at 8:30 am, followed by U.S. Leading Economic Indicators at 10 am.

Thursday begins with earnings from Darden Restaurants & FactSet, before FedEx & Lennar report following the sessions close.

The week winds down Friday with Fed President Daly speaking at 2:30 pm & there are no noteworthy earnings reports scheduled for release.

See you back here next week!

*** I DO NOT OWN SHARES OR OPTIONS CONTRACT POSITIONS IN SPY, QQQ, IWM OR DIA AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE ***