Aug
20

When S&P Futures Recover From a Down Open

By on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 9:09 pm

Stocks closed with solid gains Thursday as institutional selling pressure was noticeably absent. TICKscore settled at +17, Cumulative TICK +84,000. NYSE TICK didn’t even trade below -700 Thursday, the highest intraday low since last Christmas. Looking back at previous instances in which the NYSE TICK registered its ‘highest low’ in the last three or six months, I found little edge going forward.

VXO settled down 6% at 23.79, back at the lower end of its recent range, sending the spread between its upper and lower bollinger bands over the 15% threshold. That closes out the buy signal triggered by the Band Spread indicator back on August 11th.

One noteworthy price pattern was triggered Thursday – S&P futures opened lower and closed above the previous day’s high for a second consecutive session. Historically, this pattern has led to generally weak performance over the next two sessions. The last thirty occurrences are listed in the table below…

S&P Futures Open Lower, Close >Previous Day’s High Two  Days
08/20/09… S&P futures ??? two sessions later
07/27/09… S&P futures -0.5% two sessions later
03/18/09… S&P futures -3.5% two sessions later
11/28/08… S&P futures -5.2% two sessions later
09/12/08… S&P futures -3.4% two sessions later
02/26/08… S&P futures -1.2% two sessions later
10/25/06… S&P futures -0.3% two sessions later
10/24/06… S&P futures +0.6% two sessions later (*)
10/16/06… S&P futures -0.3% two sessions later
10/05/06… S&P futures -0.1% two sessions later
03/15/06… S&P futures +0.2% two sessions later
12/14/05… S&P futures -0.6% two sessions later
11/23/05… S&P futures -0.6% two sessions later
05/17/05… S&P futures +1.4% two sessions later (*)
02/25/05… S&P futures -0.2% two sessions later
10/28/04… S&P futures +0.3% two sessions later
09/02/04… S&P futures +0.2% two sessions later
05/26/04… S&P futures +0.4% two sessions later
01/07/04… S&P futures -0.5% two sessions later
12/23/03… S&P futures -0.0% two sessions later
06/05/03… S&P futures -1.4% two sessions later
07/31/02… S&P futures -5.1% two sessions later
11/26/01… S&P futures -2.2% two sessions later
10/03/01… S&P futures -0.2% two sessions later
01/11/01… S&P futures +0.1% two sessions later
12/28/00… S&P futures -4.0% two sessions later
12/27/00… S&P futures -1.2% two sessions later
04/12/99… S&P futures -2.4% two sessions later
11/06/98… S&P futures -1.7% two sessions later
10/15/98… S&P futures +0.5% two sessions later
06/09/97… S&P futures +0.5% two sessions later

Note that in 21 out of the past 30 occurrences, or 70% of the time, the S&P closed lower two sessions later, significantly greater than the 48% at-any-time odds for a lower close two days later. Also notice that even when the market managed to keep moving higher, upside potential was typically capped at 0.5%. Only twice did the S&P rally more than 0.5% in the two days following this pattern, while it fell more than 0.5% thirteen times.

Copyright Notice

Copyright 2012 Astrikos LLC. This publication is for the benefit of subscribers only and is not to be summarized, reproduced, or rebroadcast in any fashion without our written permission.

Market Tells is on Twitter!


Disclaimer

Comments, data and trading signals herein are for informational purposes only and are not recommendations to buy or sell. All information presented is believed to be accurate but is not guaranteed.