A review of the US market close 30 November 2017
I said it in yesterday’s Opening Print, “The S&P 500 tends to go sideways to lower after a big up day,” and that’s exactly what we got. After being held to 6.5 handle range on Globex, the e-mini S&P 500 futures (ESU17:CME) opened at 2628.00 on yesterday’s 8:30 am CT bell. Following some overnight strength in European markets, the ES initially rallied, printing a high at 2634.25 just before 9:00 am. That was all she wrote for the early bulls though. Once the high was established, the move lower started.
The first leg lower came hard and fast, with a 9 handle break occurring in just under 10 minutes. After that, it was a steady ‘stair stepper’ down to new lows. By 11:00am the ES had bottomed out at 2619.75, a 14.5 handle break off the highs. Month end selling has been showing up recently, and it looked like the mutual funds were selling the FANG stocks and buying the banks and the Dow Transports.
After the low the was established, the ES rallied up to 2626.50, just 1 tick under the vwap and then sold back off down to 2622.75. The next move was a rally back up to 2626.25, a lower high by 1 tick, and then a move back down to 2622.00. From there, the ES traded sideways in a 5 handle range for the rest of the day.
To tell the truth, after the early selloff and bounce, the futures went into a big chop. After another small pop and drop, the MIM went from buy $414 million to buy $641 million, and the ES traded back up to 2625.50. The actual MOC came out NYSE Closing Imbal: NET Buy $991 M – 11/29/2017-15:45 EST.
Despite the early big move there was a lot of chop throughout the day, and I think it was due to the tax cut passage. The other part was some good old profit taking in the tech sector. I have been hinting at some month end selling, and that’s what it looked like. In the end the S&P 500 futures (ESZ17:CME) settled at 2625.00, down -1.00 handles, or -0.03%; the Dow Jones futures (YMZ17:CBT) settled at 23,918, up +107 points, or +0.44%; the Nasdaq 100 futures (NQZ17:CME) settled at 6305.50, down -114.75 points, or -1.81%; and the Russell 2000 (RTYZ17:CME) settled at 1541.20, up +4.90 points or +0.31% on the day.
As always, please use protective buy and sell stops when trading futures and options.
- In Asia 10 out of 11 markets closed lower: Shanghai Comp -0.61%, Hang Seng -1.51%, Nikkei +0.57%
- In Europe 10 out of 12 markets are trading higher: CAC +0.22%, DAX +0.42%, FTSE -0.14%
- Fair Value: S&P -0.16, NASDAQ +2.68, Dow -2.98
- Total Volume: 1.6m ESZ & 700 SPZ traded in the pit
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