ChartsEdge (S&P 500 / U.S. equities) map for 4/23; and comments of my own for the markets today

Market Map for Apr23

Posted: April 23rd, 2009
Author: Mike Korell
Filed under: One-Day Market Map
Comments to ChartsEdge »


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Thanks again to Mike and ChartsEdge! Their map for yesterday proved to give great timing once again, for intraday high and low spots. We know that we aren't supposed to take the shape of the curve from any daily map to give us actual high or low levels, even though it may be hard to remember that on some days (especially days when the curve plays out well for both timing and levels). The purpose is to depict timing in particular.

As for stepping back to see where equities are moving in the bigger picture - we know the weekly cycle forecast (which uses different methodology) from ChartsEdge indicated the market jumping to higher levels Thursday and Friday. Does that get us to new rally highs? I'm still working with the VIX/VXO chart levels, as well as the Fibonacci levels for the S&P 500, to measure the market's movements for an answer. Also, from other methods such as oscillators and stochastics, we know that many (not all) had showed the markets as overbought. Perhaps the only thing that's delaying a significant pullback, is that so many people are looking for a significant pullback!

Daytraders continue to have a lot to work with; for swing traders, you might be working with the ChartsEdge weekly forecast already (buy-on-Monday crowd happy again? if bought intraday Monday perhaps), or if you sold on Friday with the VIX Fibonacci retrace level then you may be continuing to measure out whether to remain in the trade. For that measurement, the Fibonaccci retrace levels back to Friday's high, and the gap left open Monday morning, and the hourly-bar charts' technical indicators, are the guides to use.

Here are some more comments about the significance of the area around 860 on the S&P 500. If you've been reading for a long time, and looking at my monthly charts of that index, you know that the market has moved around the numbers such as 860, 960, 1060, etc. One of the reasons why that 667 level was so interesting as it was in the 660 vicinity. Well, I just ran the .707 Fibonacci retrace from Friday's high to Tuesday's low, and got 861.33 as that retrace level. And I ran the .707 from the January 6 high to the March 6 low, and got 862.84. This reinforces that the market is once again resonating around 860-ish as an important, big-picture pivot level. Sure, there are other important pivot levels, such as those mentioned by Andre Gratian and Tony Caldaro. It's just that 860 is a big-picture pivot that even I can "see"! So we should include this in our thinking as we interpret market action on the daily and weekly charts too.