Merry Christmas!

I hope you went long at the 1200ish support level and made yourself a Christmas present! : )

The SPX rallied to the resistance at 1256 on Thursday, went sideways for half a day, and then rallied to the strong resistance area at 1265-67 on Friday. We're up more than 60 handles since we hit the important medium-term support around 1200 earlier this week! ; )


I wish you a Merry Christmas!

Hugo

Silver ~ Update ~ 22 December 2011

Silver broke the level which was important for the uptrend to continue already mid November (33$). Since then it's been declining and hit 28 $ a few days ago:

Supports and resistances are shown in the chart above. The trend is down as long as silver doesn't break 31ish. If it rallies above 33$ the trend is up again.

S&P 500 ~ Intraday Update 1 ~ 20 December 2011

Worked like a charm! : )

The SPX hit the support at 1200ish yesterday and today we're up more than 30 handles!

Gold ~ Update ~ 20 December 2011

The medium-term uptrend was broken when gold fell below my support level at 1680. A sharp sell-off followed and a few days ago we almost hit the September lows again:

As you can see also the long-term uptrend is in danger as gold broke below the orange support line. I won't short gold though. Generally, I prefer to go long if we hit support levels/trendlines (with a stop a few bucks below it) and not to go short if we break it because very often you get a false break below the trendline (especially now since we have a strong support level at 1550ish so the risk/reward isn't that good).

Support levels are at ~1550 and 1430ish. Resistance is at 1670-80.

S&P 500 ~ EOD Update ~ 19 December 2011

Nothing has changed. The SPX hit the upper trendline again on Friday and sold off to the important support level around the 1200 level today:

As already said a few times last week the short-term trend is down as long as we stay in the channel.

S&P 500 ~ Pre-Market Warm-Up ~ 16 December 2011

The SPX rallied to the resistance at 1226 yesterday and closed the open gap. From there it sold off a bit and then traded between 1215 and 1220 for the rest of the day.

Not much has changed. The short-term trend is still down and important support is at 1200ish.

The downtrend channel looks even better on the ES:

Bears have the upper hand as long as we stay in this channel.

S&P 500 ~ EOD Update ~ 14 December 2011

The pullback continued today and the SPX has already retraced more than 50 % of the late November rally:

I labeled the 1200ish area as an important support area. If the market breaks below it the medium-term trend will be down. As long as it holds though I still think there could be one more rally late December/early 2012.

S&P 500 ~ EOD Update ~ 13 December 2011

We got a pretty decent bounce from the 1227ish level and hit 1250 in the morning. From there the market sold off and hit 1219 shortly before the close:

The market continues to trade within a downward channel since early December. The waves from 1265 look corrective though so a rally later this month seems likely. But as long as there is no convincing break above 1245ish the short-term trend is down.

S&P 500 ~ Intraday Update 1 ~ 12 December 2011

The SPX is down even more today than it was up on Friday.

We're below the 1233ish support level now and there isn't much support until 1200ish. The two support areas in between are only highly speculative as they were perfect areas for a potential inverse H&S:

S&P 500 ~ Pre-Market Warm-Up ~ 9 December 2011

We got a break out of the tight range yesterday: the SPX broke below 1245 and then sold off to 1232:

Supports/resistances and possible short-term counts are shown in the chart above.

There isn't a lot of support below 1233ish. 1215 or 1230 could be supports as these levels were perfect candidates for a potential right shoulder of a big inverse H&S. Many "if"s though.. so one step at a time. If we break below 1233ish I'll post a new chart with updated support levels.

S&P 500 ~ Elliott Wave Count ~ 7 December 2011

And we hit the resistance at 1265ish once again:

So far, so good. There is our sideways consolidation early December and we may have already completed it today (as shown in the chart above). We've been trading in a narrow range since early this month though so I'd prefer a break out before going long (or short).

If we break above 1265ish the next target should be 1292ish.

S&P 500 ~ EOD Update ~ 5 December 2011

The SPX opened higher, rallied to the resistance area around 1265, which I mentioned as a possible target for wave [a]/[i], and then sold off:

Nothing has changed: I still think that we could see a (sideways?) correction early December. If 1265ish breaks though then we could go much higher.

ES ~ Pre-Market Warm-Up ~ 5 December 2011

The SPX opened higher on Friday and then sold off. So, as pointed out on Friday morning we may have completed five waves from the low at around 1160.

This morning though we're back near the Friday highs so we have to watch what happens after the open today. If we break above 1260/65 we might go much higher, else this could be just a retest of the recent highs followed by another sell-off to ~1240 (i.e. something similar to what happend in mid October). As said last week, we might see only a small correction followed by another move up into end of year (similar to October).

S&P 500 ~ Elliott Wave Count ~ 1 December 2011

We got the expected fourth wave sideways consolidation yesterday. The SPX corrected to the support level at 1240 and then moved sideways for the rest of the day:

Wave (iv) is probably finished so we could see one more push higher. A possible target is the resistance around 1265. After that I think a bigger correction is due which should retrace a part of the most recent rally from 1159. If bulls get out of control and we get break above 1265ish next targets are 1275ish and 1292ish.