S&P 500 Recap

Good morning, S&P Futures are up 3.5 points with lots of economic reports to be released at 830am. On Wednesday morning after finishing lower for the third-straight session as optimism about the global economy improved despite the continuing euro zone debt crisis. China's GDP came in at an annual rate of 9.5%, which was down from the Q1 level, but above expectations. In addition, the strong number on China's Retail Sales in the first half was giving traders reason to be a bit more optimistic about the country's outlook. Moody's downgrade of Ireland was a problem for the markets yesterday afternoon but this morning's announcement by Italian officials that the country will pass austerity measures by Friday was also a positive factor in the early going. The government reported that Import Prices for the month of June fell by -0.5%, which was above the consensus for an decline of -0.7%. Export prices rose by +0.1%, which was below last month's revised level of +0.2%.

 
The Wednesday session opened with a gap higher and traded lower for the first half hour. Then the SPX erupted for a quick twelve point surge to put the high of the day on the chart at 11:28 am. But once again, bulls could not hold the gains. The index slowly began to decline and as the afternoon wore on, the decline accelerated. By the end of the day the index was thirteen points off the highs and closed lower than the open. This session was much like the previous one and it is hard to see anything really bullish in a session with morning highs and late day lows.

There were 296 components advancing and 171 components declining. On the NYSE 3,136 issues were traded with 2,049 advancing issues and 981 retreating issues, a ratio of 2.09 to one advancing. There were 61 new highs and 24 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 97 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 23 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 387. The ADX is still is a bullish uptrend (my charts site down)

Wednesday’s volume was lighter than Tuesday's volume. The intraday volume pattern shows a large spike in volume along with the late afternoon sell-off. MSI and MO remains bearish after Wednesday's action MSI is bearish and the McClellan Oscillator continues to be overbought.