Equities Finish Down in Mostly Sideways Trade

James Hyerczyk from ForexHound.com at 12/08/09

Equity futures traded inside of last Friday’s range before finishing lower for the day.  The mixed Dollar helped trigger a two-sided trade. The daily December E-mini S&P 500 held support at 1098.50 to 1093.50.  The December E-mini NASDAQ has support at 1779.00 to 1770.25.  A sell-off today could send the December E-mini Dow down to a retracement zone at 10357 to 10321.  The main trend turns down on a trade through 10205.

The March Treasury Bonds traded inside of Friday’s range ahead of the start of tomorrow’s Treasury auction. Although T-Bonds and T-Notes finished higher, selling pressure is likely to reappear as the new supply hits the market.  The thought of the Fed raising interest rates means investors will ask for higher yields.

The U.S. Dollar see-sawed most of the day, before closing lower.  The lack of economic reports caused a choppy two-sided trade. In addition, many traders stayed on the sidelines or evened up position ahead of this week’s many central bank reports.  In most cases the Dollar continued its strength in a follow-through rally from Friday, but failed to hold on to its gains by the close. Technically, the Dollar Futures Index took out Friday’s high but failed to attract the buying strength it needed to drive it higher.  The chart pattern suggests a break to 75.26 to 75.03 may be needed to relieve the overbought condition.

February Gold appears to have found solid support after trading sharply lower earlier in the session. The strong recovery from the bottom indicates that the combination of fresh buying and oversold conditions could drive this market back to $1181.80.
 

March Crude Oil finished the day near its lows. Falling equity prices, a stronger Dollar and bearish supply/demand fundamentals contributed to the weakness.  The .618 downside target was reached today at 77.42.  The next target is a major 50% price at 75.53.