FOR THURSDAY: (12/1) Trade is waiting for employment numbers on Friday, which may not mean much with a rate hike coming anyway and then Italy over the weekend. Hard to imagine stocks blasting to new highs before all that. Currencies tend to over react the most to these events and we’ll have to be flat for the weekend. OPEC good news is off sold off as they inevitably cheat on the agreements or fight later. For now it’s a good thing given that maybe deflation cycles are finally ending. Fund buying at first of the month for stocks can get delayed if it’s too close to employment report but not thinking it matters this month.
S&P ANALYSIS FOR THURSDAY: (12/1) We had the right idea with shorts but our stop was too tight to handle slippage from the early OPEC surge. Today was the last of the weak minor cycles. The major cycles were never that weak this week and seem higher on Thursday and often first-of-the-month buying comes in. Key support is at 2196.50 and 2193.50 and major support at 2189, and those levels will set up a buy in the morning. Not sure if we’ll see 2215 or 2220 this week and we are still open to 2173 or 2150 this month and seasonally the market is often weak the first few weeks of December. The market is close to confirming the more bullish upward short-term pattern to 2227.75 if new highs come in but if that does happen we still could see 2175-80 later in the month and so chasing in the stratosphere isn’t recommended.
OVERALL: It would not take much to create a 3rd-wave acceleration to 2232 and 2250 but we are more likely to see a pullback to 2175 into mid-Dec. which is seasonally lower and then a secondary high into Christmas. After Christmas, the market looks rather vulnerable. We are starting to wonder if January will be vulnerable even if we see higher price into June.
BIG PICTURE: The market is acting like it is in a 3-of-3 expansion wave and the current projection is up to 2292 on cash and maybe 2342 on cash by 2nd quarter and maybe 2392 as an extreme target for 2017.
CYCLES OVERVIEW: Higher into Thursday.
