Sometimes I think even Barnum and Baily would be jealous of the circus that goes on inside my head. We have a full moon on Thursday. Does it affect the market? Most of the time – yes. Hospital emergency rooms fill up too.

Then we roll from June into the September futures contracts on the same day. The September S&P 500 futures contract currently trades about 10 points below May. Go figure. Coincidence? Maybe. Regardless, these extraneous factors can be tricky.

The S&P 500 has been beating on the overhead resistance around 4233 or so. The all-time (intraday) high is 4238.25. There is an old saying – persistence beats resistance. There is a 75% chance the S&P 500 will break out, but the other 25% can kill you. As I said last week, it is like Grandma slapping my hand in the cookie jar every time the S&P 500 tries to soar. Yesterday was no exception, but Grandpa cannot seem to pound the market down either.

The overnight traders (remember it is daytime where they are) often love to break the market out in Globex and take away the candy from the Americans in the regular session. Thus far, they have not managed to do so, so the S&P 500 is inside yesterday’s range. I do like the sell in the morning and buy in the afternoon action the past few days. That is more bullish than bearish. Also, the value area (where 70% of the volume occurred) is unchanged for three days in a row. That is undoubtedly not bearish.

So, where does that leave our plan for the day? Ditto yesterday. We are trading inside of yesterday’s range which still reflects a balancing market. If we do break out, it is a go/no go situation. Watch internals for support or not. 

We either need the majority in on the game or the FAANGMAN+T group to carry the water for everyone else. Today, like yesterday, is a bit like a look above under balance rules. Monitor for acceptance and continuation or not, as the case may be. Yesterday’s mid-day lows (4424 on the S&P 500 futures and 13829.25 on the NASDAQ 100) are my line in the sand today. My bias is positive above those levels.

Good luck today!

A.F. Thornton