The USD continues chopping sideways and mixed US data overnight has only helped to fuel more of the same price action. Employment data was upbeat but manufacturing data not so. This choppy USD action has resulted in similar activity across many FX pairs and I continue to believe this situation won’t change until there is a make or break of either 95.50 or 92.50 on the USD index. Things have been less quiet across on the NASDAQ though where the index has managed to close higher, unlike the S&P500 and DJIA, and is still above the key 4,800 level for now. I will update more about the index towards the end of this post.
USDX daily: still within either a Bull Flag or under a bearish Double Top. No resolution here yet and, as stated above, I’d want to see a break and hold beyond either 95.50 or 92.50 to be confident of the next directional move:
USDX 4hr: chopping sideways for now but within the Flag. A most tragic song from my youth comes to mind here. Annoying, irritating and a really bad ‘ear worm’ candidate BUT the chorus here need to be sung loud and clear to this index:
EURX daily: A bottoming pattern or a Bear Flag?
EURX 4hr: Range bound like the USDX:
Forex: I don’t have any new TC signals with this choppy USD and EURX activity and, really, I won’t be expecting to see any or many new trend signals until there is breakout on the USD & EURX indices. Chinese New Year would be feeding into this quiet BUT there is still a bit of high impact EUR and GBP data still to come on this last day of the week. Also, any Greek-debt news item from the Eurogroup meetings will have the potential to jolt the markets and price action and traders need to be mindful of this.
E/U: triangle bound:
E/J: similar here, above support but below 136:
A/U: under 0.785 resistance:
A/J: drifting along ….. aimlessly:
GBP/USD: stalled under 1.55 resistance:
G/U daily Cloud: I’m still watching for any break and hold above the Cloud though:
Kiwi: holding near the 4hr 200 EMA:
Loonie: range bound too:
S&P500: This did manage to print a new all time intra-day high overnight before closing a bit lower. The falling Oil price, recent FOMC news and the Greek-debt situation continue to concern stock traders:
NASDAQ: I have given two presentations this week about the NASDAQ and this has been particularly relevant as the index is now trading above the key break out level I have been stalking for many months. The monthly candle has yet to close BUT a February hold above 4,800 will support a bullish triangle breakout for the index. The daily chart below shows that the index has also made a bullish Cloud breakout and a bullish Tenkan/Kijun cross.
The NASDAQ managed to print a bullish daily close where the other major indices struggled. I do note that the Russell 2000 ‘bellwether’ stock, whilst down marginally on the session, is still holding above its own potential monthly breakout level of 1,220:
AMAT: one stock profiled in my talks this week has been AMAT and it rallied last night to break back above the key $24 level and the daily Cloud. It is certainly a NASDAQ stock to watch if the composite index breaks 4,800 this month. (Disclosure: I am long AMAT but quite confident that my position and enthusiasm here isn’t what moved this market overnight!):
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