Pre-market update:

• Asian markets traded 0.1% lower.
• European markets are trading 0.8% lower.
  
• US futures are trading 0.4% higher ahead of the market open. 
  

Economic reports due out (all times are eastern): Challenger Job-Cut Report (7:30), Jobless Claims (8:30), Employment Cost Index (8:30), Chicago PMI (9:45), EIA Natural Gas Report (10:30), Farm Prices (3)

Technical Outlook (SPX):

• Flat and doji candle day yesterday with no real reaction to the FOMC Statement.
• This morning’s weakness will challenge the box range that SPX has been trading in during the entire month. 
• Watch price support at 1955, failure to hold it would break below the month long trading range. 
• Portuguese banking problems are showing up in the news once again as the bank dropped 50% in price. This is the main news driver for today’s weakness. 
• With futures selling off as much as they are ahead of the open, look for a low of the day to be quickly established within the first hour of trading. If this low eventually is broken, that bodes very badly for the indices. 
• Head and shoulders pattern forming on the 30-minute SPX chart. 
• VIX rose a small bit to 13.38 yesterday. 
• Gaps have rarely held in either direction lately. 
• The market doesn’t care about the economy nor earnings. That is not what is driving it. The market only cares about what the Fed is doing to keep equities propped up. 

My Trades:

• Added one additional long position yesterday. 
• Closed out MRO yesterday at $39.68 for a 1.2% loss. 
• Will look to add 1-2 new long positions today if the market is able to put in an early morning bottom and recover off of the lows of the day. 
• Remain long EBAY at 51.75, MS at 32.88, GOOG at 585.61
• 40% Long / 60% Cash
• Join me each day for all my real-time trades and alerts in the SharePlanner Splash Zone

Chart for SPX: