Today’s Trading Plan: Residing at 1600

Pre-market update (updated 9am eastern):

• European markets are trading 1% higher.
• Asian markets traded flat and mixed.
• US futures are significantly higher.

Economic reports due out (all times are eastern): Employment Situation (8:30am), Factory Orders (10am),  ISM Non-Manufacturing Index (10am)

Technical Outlook (SPX):

• Huge beat on the Employment number has the market gapping much higher from yesterday’s close.
• Strong news-driven gaps like this, especially when expectations were very low, tend to hold throughout the day.
• While I expect we will hold on to the gap-up move today, I’m not as optimistic we will see much more in gains added to the move we have already seen.
• More than likely the market will consolidate for most of the day after we get past the first 30 minutes of trading.
• The SPX will also be gapping through the 1600 level which is a significant milestone for the market.
• If the SPX does end up filling the gap, that would be very bearish scenario, a major head fake, and you will want to tighten your stops dramatically.
• SPX firmly in overbought territory.
• 1575 remains a key rising support level that was formed off of the channel that started back in November.
• VIX settled in at 13.6.
• Markets don’t care about the economy. That is not what is driving them. The markets only care about what the Fed is doing to keep equities propped up.
• Both channels (July October 2012) and the price channel we are currently in are very similar in nature.
• We haven’t seen a market pullback in excess of 4% since October/November time-frame.

My Opinions & Trades:

• Added LULU at $76.01.
• Added RLGY at $48.49.
• Will be looking to add 1-2 new long positions today.
• Remain Long TSM at $18.37, WDAY at $60.35, TXN at $36.02, CMG at $364.85, TSCO at $107.62
• Join me each day for all my real-time trades and alerts in the SharePlanner Trading Block

Chart for SPX: