Category Founder’s Trading Journal

Morning Notes – 3/15/2021

February Producer Prices +10%

This is a chart and breakdown of the Producer Price Index for February 2022
This is a chart and breakdown of the Producer Price Index for February 2022

Good Morning:

  • I harken back to law school finals, which is the last time I recall pulling all-nighters. I now remember that I felt worse the second day than the first. I must avoid these in the future; I am getting too old and feel like I am experiencing a college hangover.
  • As such, I will tackle charts later this morning, though nothing has changed much.
  • The headlines have been writing themselves again lately: “When we’re having this discussion, it’s important to dispel some of those who say, well, it’s the government spending. No, it isn’t. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary.” Nancy Pelosi
  • Hey Nancy, Producer Prices rose 10% last month, you are not spending enough! Politicians and financial advisers are the only categories showing significant demand waning and lower prices.
  • The NASDAQ 100 took out its February low yesterday, but the S&P 500 holds just above. From a NASDAQ perspective, it looks like a bear flag to go lower, but the S&P 500 is hanging on to a falling wedge look. Even within the wedge, there could be lower prices.
  • There is no shift in the outlook. The sentiment is poised – maybe even screaming – for a rally. Fed announcements come tomorrow. Options and Futures expire Friday (Quadruple Witching), with almost one-third of outstanding options expiring.
  • And don’t forget about short-covering rallies. If it were not for those, this would be no fun at all.
  • Significant support today will be at 4151 and 4126. Resistance is at 4201 and 4250. For now, that is your chart for today.
  • Hedge Funds have been taking profits on commodity spikes, with oil poking back down below $100 last night. Buy the dip?
  • We would open with a small gap higher into yesterday’s range at this writing. It would not be a True Gap, so Gap Rules are not applicable.
  • The NASDAQ 100 continued to explore new lows in overnight trade before returning into yesterday’s range. The NASDAQ behavior is classic h pattern price action, which allows for a bullish outcome.

  • The overnight rejection of lower prices and other technicals show potential for short covering in today’s session.

  • The S&P 500 continued to hold above the 2/24 low, but it looks like traders ran the stops under the 3/8 low before bringing the index back into yesterday’s range.

  • Markets added some more macro concerns yesterday, with Coronavirus headlines re-appearing and China imploding economically.

  • 4000 continues to be the monster strike level, guarding the gates of market hell.

A.F. Thornton

Navigator Oracle™ – Interim Update

S&P 500 Futures 15-Min RTH Chart with Key Support and Resistance Levels
S&P 500 Futures 15-Min RTH Chart with Key Support and Resistance Levels

And so it begins...

Barclays has announced the suspension, until further notice, of any additional sales from inventory and any additional issuances of iPath Pure Beta Crude Oil ETN (ticker OIL) and iPath Series B S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (VXX)

According to a press release, the suspension is because “Barclays does not currently have sufficient issuance capacity to support further sales from inventory and any further issuances of the ETNs”

ETNs are exchange-traded senior debt notes usually linked to a benchmark index. They are similar to ETFs, except they hold debt rather than equities.

S&P 500 Futures 15-Min RTH Chart with Expected Move Levels
S&P 500 Futures 15-Min RTH Chart with Expected Move Levels

The major indices, including the S&P 500 index, were already in freefall but accelerated lower after the headlines hit.

The market is breaking the Covid Crash trendline at the moment, but it could be a stop run. We are at the Expected Move Low for the day and below our second major support level.

There might be a long trade on a pivot higher, but it feels like we would be fighting the algos. Market internals are 3:1 negative on both the NYSE and NASDAQ.

The day started on a positive note but failed on a test of the 5-day line. So let’s watch the wedge formation and go from there.

A.F. Thornton

Navigator Oracle ™ – 3/13/2022

This is a weekly chart of the S&P 500 futures June continuous contract with the Navigator Algorithm Dashboard showing the three sell alerts going into the January 4th peak. No sign of a bottom or buy signal yet in the weekly timeframe.
This is a weekly chart of the S&P 500 futures June continuous contract with the Navigator Algorithm Dashboard showing the three sell alerts going into the January 4th peak. No sign of a bottom or buy signal yet in the weekly timeframe.

Interim Issue Number 0975 - 03/13/2022

The Navigator Oracle™ is BluPrint Quantitative Strategies’ signature publication. The weekly forecast is available Monday mornings free and can be sent directly to your email if you register. Subscribers receive the Oracle on Sunday morning, along with essential updates during the week and live access to swing trading signals initiated by the BluPrint Founders Group.

Do You Embrace Change?

We had some technical issues tonight, and I have been awake until 2:30 am trying to fix the problems. I usually get up at 3:00 am – so the forecast will come out this afternoon and I won’t be publishing key levels this morning.

The key to the week ahead is to get through the Fed meeting and rate increase announcement on Wednesday, then monthly options expiration on Friday. I do not anticipate taking any significant positions before these events unless the price action dictates otherwise.

As we wade through these events with seriously negative investor sentiment, we are looking for a swing low to grip near the recent 2/24 and 3/8 lows, if not a temporary spike low below them to run all the stops.

Note the falling wedge pattern outlined in the chart above. The pattern can also help guide us through the next few sessions.

Even with a relief rally, this baby bear has the potential to grow into a mama bear before this unfortunate era is behind us.

At the moment, there is strong support at 4200 and strong resistance between 4300 and 4400, at least until monthly options expire around those strikes on Friday.

Please make no mistake; we are in a severe and unfolding crisis as the world divides between the fiat currency (worthless money) powers and commodity-rich countries such as Russia and China.

I believe that the U.S. dollar is finished as the reserve currency, as is our global leadership position. We are being challenged in every corridor because we have a fat, weak, and feckless government, and plenty of blame precedes Sleepy Joe.

Our “cancel culture’ politicians made a severe error in weaponizing the dollar and our Federal Reserve against Russia. No legitimate government will trust us any longer with their reserves, and they will flee our sphere of influence just as fast as conservatives are fleeing Twitter.

Nothing the Fed can do will stop the inflation unleashed in this crisis. We are shifting from a Western-dominated or financialized monetary world to an eastern-dominated or commoditized one.

When you see those unbelievable price spikes on oil, wheat, nickel, etc., don’t forget that some firm is on the wrong side of every one of those trades. Hedge funds and banks are losing billions and are sinking. It takes about a week for bodies to float to the surface.

Inflation is written all over this for us. This crisis is not like anything we have seen since President Nixon took the U.S. dollar off gold in 1971, ending the last era of commodity-based money.

Fiat currencies and the global powers that embrace them always end on the trash heap of history. We are now witnessing our potential demise in real-time.

Washington takes this so seriously they purposefully passed another $3.5 trillion in deficit spending in the middle of the night. It gets the government through another six months. Recall that we were all either asleep or distracted by the war when they passed the bill.

The majority of our political leadership class is corrupt, skimming off the top for themselves and their families. They will be our undoing,

Oh, did I forget to say Good Morning?

A.F. Thornton

Afternoon Notes – 3/11/2022

This is AF Thornton's 15-minute Chart of the S&P 500 Futures on 3-11-2022 at 4-30-pm-EST. The market closed on the Weekly Expected Move low, and bottom of the range.
This is AF Thornton's 15-minute Chart of the S&P 500 Futures on 3-11-2022 at 4-30-pm-EST. The market closed on the Weekly Expected Move low, and bottom of the range.

Good Afternoon:

  • Day 16, where is Fauci? No, really, where is he?
  • The “public health” house of Covid-19 cards has collapsed at freefall speed in the last month or so. 
  • Every single public health official responsible for (often permanently) damaging our mental and physical well-being with experimental mRNA gene therapy mandates, cruel forced masking, social isolation, and propaganda — down to the county level — deserves the full weight of the legal system pressed on their necks. What they did to children and the elderly is beyond reprehensible.
  • Biden’s Lie of the Day: “Make No Mistake, Inflation is Largely the Fault of Putin.” Of course, they all lie in both parties. But Biden’s latest lie is a whopper, and he isn’t fooling anyone. He forgets that real people put gas in their cars every week. They don’t need a government bean counter to tell them what is happening and when.
  • The true source of the current inflation is the cumulative increase in the money supply measured by M2 since February 2020—an incredible 41.2%. In January, the growth rate of M2, even after three months of tapering bond purchases by the Fed, was still 12.6% over its level a year earlier. That’s about double the rate it needs to be to hit the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
  • Inflation is out of control and will be with us, best guess, until the dollar is gone as the world’s singular reserve currency or the Fed destroys the economy and the stock market with massive interest rate hikes. Inflation will punish the stock market, the real estate market, and the economy at large.
  • But have our illustrious overlords learned anything? I will give you $1.5 trillion reasons that haven’t.
  • It was a clever move at a perfect time. With Ukraine raging and people traumatized over the war, leadership like Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) kept bringing questions back to $14 billion in aid for Ukraine. Members stressed that there was no time to waste — or in this case to read — before voting.
  • And then they voted, $1.5 trillion in deficit spending passed in the middle of the night. Few even read the 3,000 plus page bill. Leadership on both sides held back the bill until the last minute so that nobody had time to read it.
  • Our range trade continued intact today. The S&P 500 traveled back down to close at the 4200 put floor, and Weekly Expected Move Low. The 4200 level has been a solid support level with $3.8B Gamma (combining the SPY and SPX) and the largest of any strike.
  • At the top of the range, $3.0B in Gamma at 4300 is solid overhead resistance over the past week (although pushing a touch through it on the Putin Pop headline this morning).
  • Let’s cover the rest in the weekly outlook on Sunday.

A.F. Thornton

Morning Notes – 3/11/2022 – Expected Moves

S&P 500 Index Futures - These are A.F. Thornton's proprietary expected moves levels for 3-11-2022 and adjusted for Today's RTH Open.
S&P 500 Index Futures - These are A.F. Thornton's proprietary expected moves levels for 3-11-2022 and adjusted for Today's RTH Open.

Just a couple of quick comments this morning:

  • The market backed way down from the price level at my morning notes.
  • The index rejected the top downtrend line of the falling wedge on the daily chart, even with the Putin Pop, which retraced.
  • The wedge top tracks the falling 21-day line, so the line is also being rejected.
  • I placed the quartile colors on the most likely expected move range for the day.
  • So I see no significant change – the market remains pinned between 4200 and 4300 for now, the fluid range we have discussed the past few days.
  • The index is wedging again and likely will turn higher again soon if you want to catch a quick intraday trade. Wait for an actual pivot.
  • I still see a slight positive bias based on expiration and strike prices into the close.

A.F. Thornton

Morning Notes – 3/11/2022

This is a chart of the S&P 500 Index Futures - Navigator Algorithm Dashboard.

Good Morning:

  • I usually arise at about 2:30 am PST. So as I was executing my morning routine, I saw the Putin Pop hit the market at about 3:20 am PST. Initially, the S&P 500 jumped 70 points, right into our resistance wall between 4300 and 4320.
  • Apparently, Putin reported some positive progress in the talks with Ukraine. He is a master of deception, so it is hard to gauge the truth.
  • For all I know, his finance minister came to him and said, “Hey Vlad, do you feel like running a short-squeeze over in New York today?”
  • And that reminded me of what I have been telling you all week. It is too late to initiate shorts here without copiously managing the trade. There are too many outstanding shorts at the moment, and the indicators show that rally risk considerably exceeds decline risk.
  • With all the fear and negative news, you have to be betting on a nuclear event to cash in on shorts initiated from current levels. As I said a few days ago, if that is what you believe, you need to make sure you will still be around to collect.
  • There will be more chances to bet on lower prices ahead. Let’s wait for some higher prices.
  • My quant calculations can go out the window in a news-driven market like this morning, but I will give it a go on some ranges.
  • My best judgment, and it is somewhat speculative, is that we will open at the 4300-4320 resistance area and pin in a tight trading range. As you can see from the chart below, 4300 stands out as an obstacle to higher prices at least through weekly expiration today.
This chart of the S&P 500 Cash Index shows the 4300 Gamma-Strike Level as the most prominent on the chart.
This chart of the S&P 500 Cash Index shows the 4300 Gamma-Strike Level as the most prominent on the chart.
  • On the very optimistic side, I can calculate a gamma-adjusted volatility range of about 63 points up or down from the Open. If we open around 4300, that ranges between 4363 and 4237. But that is very optimistic.
  • With the top of the Weekly, Expected Move up at 4453 – there is headroom for more gains today, but it would counter the falling wedge downtrend line on the daily chart, which might still be our best range guide at the moment.
  • Last night (which is the most accurate picture), the options market was pricing a 52 point move from yesterday’s close at 4257.25. That would give us a range between 4205 and 4310.
  • So a lot depends on where the market opens. But there is considerable resistance at 4300 and 4320. The market is likely to pin there for the rest of the day.

This chart shows A.F. Thornton's Key Day Trading Levels at 9am EST on 3-11-2022.
This chart shows A.F. Thornton's Key Day Trading Levels at 9am EST on 3-11-2022.
  • I will mark the options pricing range from yesterday’s close on the quartile shading. Remember that we will open at the top of the range I would have projected without the Putin Pop.
  • The idea is that you want to take longs in the first quartile of the projected range, which is light green. Traders should take shorts in the top quartile or light red end of the spectrum.
  • In this kind of volatility, it is best to avoid taking positions in the middle of the range.
  • I will update the weekly outlook over the weekend.
  • Next week is the big Fed meeting.
  • The market is ready to rally, and it could start before the meeting, but I still believe that monthly expiration a week from today has the potential to hold the market back.
  • Lately, the rally starts on the Tuesday after expiration. We will have a better idea as we approach monthly expiration next Friday.
  • I would view most rallies at this stage to be “short-covering.” They will be subject to fast reversals.
  • Clarity on monetary policy and geopolitics will drive sustainable gains, but I suspect the significant positions expiring next week are Fed hedges.
  • I will adjust all levels and repost once I have the Opening price.
  • While a lot of the Putin Pop has retraced, the market will open with a True Gap, so Gap Rules apply this morning.
  • If the gap fills easily, it would be bearish, and sellers are likely to return on acceptance within range. If the gap is not filled at all or only filled partially, that can be a long signal for further short covering.

Have a great weekend.

A.F. Thornton

Afternoon Notes – 3/10/2022

This is a 15-minute Chart - S&P 500 Futures for 3-10-2022 with Key Levels.
This is a 15-minute Chart - S&P 500 Futures for 3-10-2022 with Key Levels.

Good Afternoon:

  • The inflation report came out today at 7.9% and within expectations. Still, it was the highest rate in 40 years. The number did not reflect recent commodity or wholesale inflation spikes. It will get worse.
  • A 30+ VIX is supportive of daily SPX ranges between 1.50-3.00%. However, the indexes are relatively stable in comparison to underlying components which are actually very volatile.
  • There was no follow-through to yesterday’s relief rally, so it appears that the market awaits the Fed meeting and announcement next week.
  • The S&P 500 Index stayed within predicted ranges for the day.
  • We were able to capture a nice trade for the day trading subscribers from the Weekly Expected Move low at 4200 and cashing it in near the close around 4262.
  • The WEM low held its ground all week and likely guards further downside into the close and expiration tomorrow.
  • Absent any other catalyst, the market is status quo, sandwiched between 4200 and 4300  for now.
  • I will update the numbers in the morning.

A.F. Thornton

Interim Update Revisited – 3/10/2022

Subscribers just cashed in a 50 point S&P 500 Futures Trade basde on Interim Alert on this Chart
Subscribers just cashed in a 50 point S&P 500 Futures Trade basde on Interim Alert on this Chart

Subscribers closed out a 50 point S&P 500 Futures Trade from the red circle a few minutes ago. I posted an alert when we made the trade here. We entered my green zone and then tagged the Weekly Expected Move low.

Some other inside baseball was that I knew there were a lot of puts expiring tomorrow. Due to Vanna (time decay), the crowd needs to cash those chips in ASAP or roll them. Otherwise, profits go “poof.”

The dealers have to buy the index futures when the crowd sells puts to accommodate them. That boosts the index.

Nothing is foolproof, but it was a nice combo. And you saw it here from trade inception.

Afternoon notes will be out in a few hours. I start at 2:30 am PST and I need a break…

A.F. Thornton

Morning Notes – 3/10/2022

This is a chart of the February Consumer Price Index Breakdown at 3-10-2022.

Good Morning:

  • Day 14 – where is Fauci?
  • The U.S. economy is already teetering on fiscal and monetary cliffs.
  • The risks are now compounded by the war in Eastern Europe and record-high  (even understated) inflation.
  • In February, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers rose 0.8 percent, seasonally adjusted, and 7.9 percent over the last 12 months. The number is in line with expectations but does not reflect the parabolic rise in food, energy, and industrial materials over the past few weeks.
  • The Fed has only a few choices at next week’s meeting.
  • The first choice is to keep monetary policy loose and risk an intractable rise of inflation and the complete loss of confidence and credibility of the central bank.
  • The second choice is to tighten monetary policy enough to deflate the massive bubbles in bonds, real estate, and equities.
  • Batten down the hatches as either choice will end in disaster for the stock market and the U.S. economy.
  • The piper must be paid from the Fed counterfeiting trillions of dollars to distort and obliterate free markets.
  • The song “Welcome to My Nightmare” keeps playing over and over in my head.
This is a daily chart of the S&P 500 Index with our Navigator Algorithm system dashboard. The Gamma is coiled for a big move.
This is a daily chart of the S&P 500 Index with our Navigator Algorithm system dashboard. The Gamma is coiled for a big move.
  • Do I cover my shorts now, or wait until next week’s Fed meeting and options expiration? Things that make you go hmmm. Dealer’s choice?
  • I cannot think of a comparable negative moment in my 35-year career other than 9/11.
  • So, I am going to cash in my shorts now and hopefully, get to put them back on at higher prices before the Fed meeting next week.
  • I am always reminded that Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.
This chart shows the Key Options Gamma Levels for the CPI Report on 3-10-2022
This chart shows the Key Options Gamma Levels for the CPI Report on 3-10-2022
  • There is little change to key levels. Resistance remains at 4300 and 4320 (SPY 430 equivalent). Support comes in at 4146. Consider long positions with a target at 4400 should prices find acceptance above 4300.
  • While I would still be very careful putting on shorts here, my first target would be 4170.
  • With high implied volatility, it doesn’t take much to spark violent rallies. But I am still viewing rallies as “short covering” and subject to reversals until the S&P 500 index closes over 4300.

  • A closing over 4300 could lead to a reduction in volatility, but below 4300 I look for price action to remain fluid.

  • 4400 remains a brick wall, should we get there. I will consider more shorts at that level.

  • I will publish other key levels after the Open.

A.F. Thornton

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