Market analysis for March 13th, 2024

Good Wednesday to you all! Yesterday was an o.k. day for me with a mixed bag of trades. Both our standard SPX/NDX 0DTE's made money on the day but involved small call side rolls to today. Those will be our first priority to work today. The event contract 0DTE lost. 

We have three earnings trades we will be looking to book profits on this morning with WOOF, ZIM and DLTR.

CPI hit yesterday and as expected, it was a market mover. It moved bonds. It moved gold. It moved equities. The moves were interesting. Not just because we have positons in all of those but rather the divergence. Inflation came in hot, which you would think would hurt equites. Nope. Markets pushed higher. The general consensus in the June rate cut target for the FED is still in place. Bonds tanked and rates rose. That made sense. Our bond ladder absorbed the move well. Gold got knocked down. That certainly helped our Gold ladder but it also shows that Gold isn't the best hedge against inflation. Its worth noting its also been on an extended, bullish run and may have simply been due a retrace.

Our trade docket for today:
We'll look to book profits on our three earnings trades of DLTR, WOOF, ZIM. We are in a position to get some buying power back in our DIA and GLD ladders. DELL, FSLR, IWM, META, NDX/SPX/Event contract 0DTE's, NVDA, PFE, PYPL? QQQ are also on the docket. We may have a couple new earnings trades as well.

Futures are flat this morning after yesterdays CPI catalyst. 

“Inflation came in a little hot, but the bulls aren’t ready to throw in the towel yet. Investors remain optimistic that shelter costs will come down. We still have three more reports before that key Fed meeting in June to confirm or reverse that hope,” said David Russell, a global head of market strategy at TradeStation.

On the economic data front, investors will likely focus on U.S. Crude Oil Inventories data due later in the day. Economists estimate this figure to be 0.900M, compared to last week’s value of 1.367M.
We are mostly all in on our oil ladder positioning but have the buying power to adjust should we need to. Oil is one of our main focal points on Weds.

Wednesday 13th March
10:30 ET
Weekly EIA Crude Oil Inventories
The Weekly Energy Information Administration Crude Oil Inventories report provides data on the change in the number of barrels of crude oil held in inventory by commercial firms in the United States over the past week.
It is an indicator for assessing supply and demand dynamics in the oil market and can influence crude oil prices.
What to Expect
A larger-than-expected increase in inventories suggests oversupply conditions, potentially putting downward pressure on oil prices, while a larger-than-expected decrease indicates tightening supply conditions, which could lead to higher prices.

Tomorrow we get PPI so inflation continues to be the main topic at hand. 
As far as price action, we continue to bang our heads against the ATH levels on most of the major indices:
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The technical picture is decidedly bullish

If you look at the overall heat map for the past weeks price action, you'll see mostly green save BA and TSLA. BA couldn't possible get more bad news. Everyday its something with them. Now, apparently whistle blowers are dying? TSLA is a different story. Analysts are predicting a 35% downside in the stock. The EV market is not healthly.

Bitcoin (and most crypto) continue to push higher. I'm most interested now in Etherium and its potential to get a spot EFT listed on the exchange. It seems inevitable. Will it get the same pop BTC got? We'll see. Again, I maintain my longs in BTC, ETH, and DOT.

Intra-day levels for me:
/ES; 5184/5211/5237/5241 to the upside. 5167/5156/5150/5139 to the downside
/NQ; 18257/18335/18448/18603 to the upside. 18134/18050/17992/17927 to the downside.

My general lean to day is slightly neutral.
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