Market analysis for Nov. 19th, 2024

Welcome  back traders! Yesterday was a strange one. The premium wasn't there and the directional bias wasn't there. The price action was jerky and hard to gauge. I pulled the profit early on most of our day trades which obviously resulted in less of a capture rate. My day trades made $900 bucks. Is that good or bad? Truthfully I wasn't happy. Actually I was frustrated but, at the end of the day I think perspective is important. Way back when we started the program to live trade the SPX we had a lofty goal of making $1,000 a day. It was a bit of a pipe dream and while we did hit it from time to time it wasn't really expected. Fast forward to today. We have refined our approach and improved our strategies and now we are unhappy if we don't make $2,000-$3,000 a day. For even our members of "higher means" $1,000 a day is meaningful. Sometimes I forget, we don't have to shoot for the moon everyday. Slow and steady wins the race. Here's a look at our results.

Let's take a look at the markets. Yesterdays snap back wasn't enough to bring our technicals back to bullish.

We are still effectively sitting on that "fill the gap" spot. This means we are still in wait and see mode for direction. The market will either use this as its launching pad upward, once again or it will lose this support, in which case the downside could be substantial and continue for a while.

December S&P 500 E-Mini futures (ESZ24) are down -0.40%, and December Nasdaq 100 E-Mini futures (NQZ24) are down -0.32% this morning as risk sentiment took a hit after Russian President Vladimir Putin updated the country’s nuclear doctrine, while investors awaited fresh data on the U.S. housing market and an earnings report from retail giant Walmart.
Markets were rattled by news that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree allowing Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to a large-scale conventional attack on its territory, including by drones. Russia will consider aggression against itself or its allies by a non-nuclear state, supported by nuclear powers, as a collective attack, according to the document posted online. This follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy to target military sites in Russia using U.S.-made long-range weapons. A report from RBC-Ukraine indicated that the first such strike has occurred.
In yesterday’s trading session, Wall Street’s major indexes ended mixed. Super Micro Computer (SMCI) surged over +15% and was the top percentage gainer on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 as the company approached a deadline to either file its delayed 10-K annual report or submit a plan to file the form to Nasdaq to prevent delisting. Also, Tesla (TSLA) climbed more than +5% after Bloomberg reported that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team will make a federal framework for self-driving cars one of the Transportation Department’s priorities. In addition, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) gained about +3% after International Business Machines announced it would deploy the company’s Instinct MI300X accelerators as a service on IBM Cloud. On the bearish side, Palantir Technologies (PLTR) slid over -6% after an SEC filing revealed that co-founder and CEO Alexander Karp sold shares worth about $399 million from last Wednesday to last Friday. 
“Traders appear to be gauging the potential impact of a new Trump administration’s policies on the economy, and the possibility that the Fed may slow down its rate-cutting campaign,” said Chris Larkin at E*Trade from Morgan Stanley. “With a relatively light economic calendar this week, the focus will shift to earnings - especially Nvidia’s, which have the potential to dictate the market’s short-term momentum.”
U.S. rate futures have priced in a 64.9% chance of a 25 basis point rate cut and a 35.1% chance of no rate change at the next FOMC meeting in December.
Meanwhile, market participants are awaiting an earnings report from AI-darling Nvidia (NVDA) on Wednesday to gauge future demand for its new Blackwell AI chips, particularly after The Information reported on Sunday that these chips were experiencing overheating issues when connected to server racks designed to hold up to 72 chips.
Today, retailers such as Walmart (WMT) and Lowe’s (LOW), as well as notable companies like Medtronic (MDT) and Keysight Technologies (KEYS), are slated to release their quarterly results.
On the economic data front, investors will focus on U.S. Building Permits (preliminary) and Housing Starts data. Economists forecast October Building Permits to be 1.440M and Housing Starts to be 1.340M, compared to the prior figures of 1.425M and 1.354M, respectively.
In addition, investors are looking forward to a speech from Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid.
In the bond market, the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note is at 4.359%, down -1.27%.

My lean or bias continues to be neutral to slightly bearish. Futures are down this morning but thats largely based on the fear of escalation of war. I think we have a solid support level here but we'll need something positive to get things moving in a bullish manner.

Trade docket for today: /MNQ scalping, /MCL, /ZN, FDX, IWM, LOW, MDT, PLTR?, WMT, TJX, TJT, 0DTE's.

It's interesting the fear and greed index is neutral. Not really giving us much of a reading either.

Let's take a look at our intra-day levels.
/ES: You can see that yesterday, sure, we had some movement but ultimately we just hugged the 200 Period M.A. on the 2hr. chart. (red line) we need a catalyst to get things moving.

Intra-day levels for /ES. 5953 is near term resistance. 5881 is support. Between these levels is just more chop.

/NQ:  The Nasdaq continues to be just a tad weaker. 20694 is first resistance with 20719 being key. That's the 200 period M.A. on the 2hr. chart (red line). Support is 20569 then 20492.

BTC: Bitcoin continues to try to push higher. The ATH is working as a large resistance level. 94200 is resistance with 90845 working as support. I'd really like to get a working trade on today.

I'll see you all in the trading room soon! Our big Nat gas trade is now just six days out from expiration. It's generating over $1,000 dollars a day of theta at this point and looks good so far.