S&P 500 Futures Trading Update: Testing Key Support

Broad Stock Market Futures Outlook for May 16, 2018

Another failure to break higher and another test of lower support have caution lights continuing in the current bullish formations.

We are a bit range bound with buyers holding us above key support, but repeated failure to hold a breach will indicate more downside likely. If you are looking for good swing setups, it seems more prudent to allow these charts to come into support in big time frames to minimize risk and that is quite a bit below the current levels.

S&P 500 Futures

Price resistance holds as support gets lower- We’ve broken support around 2713 and now the level below at 2703 is the space to hold today as we hunt for lower support. The bullets below represent the likely shift of trading momentum at the successful or failed retests at the levels noted.

• Buying pressure intraday will likely strengthen with a bullish retest of 2716.75
• Selling pressure intraday will likely strengthen with a bearish retest of 2703.75
• Resistance sits near 2715.5 to 2725.25, with 2740.75 and 2752.5 above that.
• Support sits between 2704.5 and 2697.75, with 2686.5 and 2669.50

NASDAQ Futures

Lower highs took us to the breakout near 6855 when buyers jumped in- and now we have to see if they have the strength to push us through 6929.  Volume profiles in all our indices give us a strong chance of fades into these low auction spaces, even after the bounces.  The big picture still shows range bound behavior as the summer rolls on.  The bullets below represent the likely shift of trading momentum at the successful or failed retests at the levels noted.

• Buying pressure intraday will likely strengthen with a bullish retest of 6909.75
• Selling pressure intraday will likely strengthen with a bearish retest of 6884.5
• Resistance sits near 6909.25 to 6929.5 with 6949.75 and 6971.75 above that.
• Support sits between 6900.5 and 6889.5, with 6874.75 and 6836.5 below that.

WTI Crude Oil

Prices stall in the upper ranges as contract close looms- Ranges have widened a bit but support still holds and we did see a new high in this contract yesterday.  Below 70.44, sellers will likely become more aggressive.  The bullets below represent the likely shift of trading momentum at the successful or failed retests at the levels noted.

• Buying pressure intraday will likely strengthen with a bullish retest of 71.69
• Selling pressure intraday will strengthen with a bearish retest of 70.78
• Resistance sits near 71.58 to 71.92, with 72.22 and 72.87 above that.
• Support holds near 70.8 to 70.54, with 70.15 and 69.32 below that.

Twitter:  @AnneMarieTrades

The author trades stock market futures every day and may have a position in mentioned securities at the time of publication. Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.