2024-05-14 - a daily price action after hour update - nasdaq

Good Evening and I hope you are well.

overall market comment
US PPI surprised upwards and markets printed a crash bar, just so the bulls can do the reversal and squeeze all the shorts. Measured move targets from that spike lead to many logical resistance levels and after today there can be little doubt we won’t get there before US CPI is released. Odds that the CPI number can surprise upwards as well, went up significantly today and I think the odds that the markets will shake off the risk again, are low.

nasdaq e-mini futures
comment: Not as strong as dax since we are still 270 points below the ath but odds are decent that we get there. Measured move target could be 18600 but it’s so close to 18708, that the ath will be the logical magnet.

current market cycle: bull trend inside bigger trading range

key levels: 18000 - 18708

bull case: Bulls got the obvious magnet above with the ath and since today had an amazing reversal, everyone expects the market to get there. Clear 2 pushes up so far and a third could bring us to 18600ish and then some. A minor pull-back is expect but not lower than 18330. If it would stay above 18360 would be more bullish.

bear case: Bears got exactly to the 50% pull-back target from the ath to the last major low. Since the trap was so big, I expect bears to step aside enough for another big push up. Bears hope CPI comes in hot and I expect that even if market does rally, strong bears will probably hold onto shorts and add higher again at around 18700. If bears can push this below 18330 before cpi, this is something else and my thesis is wrong.

short term: up - at least 18600 expected but decent chance for new ath above 18708.

medium-long term: Bearish - 16500 over the next months and probably 15000 in 2024.

trade of the day: The reversal was strong enough for a second leg and the pull-back bar 11+12 was also shallow so bar 13 war a decent signal bar and going long above would have been good for 76 points. Buying the reversal bar 8 was also reasonable because it was so strong but market stalled at the 1h 20ema so not as high probability as it could have been.