Seasonal Context & Events
Earnings season is over, options expirations are taking a break, no holidays to mess with liquidity, and no end-of-month fund flows to stir things up. It’s just pure, unfiltered price action. The only logistical wrinkle? The U.S. is playing its biannual game of messing with the clocks, so if you’re outside the States, keep in mind that Market hours are shifting. Don’t be that trader who shows up an hour late wondering why futures already made their move.
Key events include:
11th March 14:00UTC JOLTs Job Openings & Quits
12th March 12:30UTC Inflation Rate
12th March 12:30UTC CPI
13th March 12:30UTC PPI
13th March 12:30UTC Initial Jobless Claims
Those events may or may not influence the opening direction and subsequent days.
Support & Resistance Levels
| R3 | 5986 |
| R2 | 5969 |
| R1 | 5905 |
| Close | 5770 |
| S1 | 5696 |
| S2 | 5639 |
| S3 | 5612 |
Wrap Up & Forecast
Did not forget about the whole “blame game” (being biased) thing, but since I’ve got something more relevant, I’ll save that thought for another time (which conveniently helps me dodge a debate on crypto—no offense, by the way, low was 78k wink wink).
You lose money twice as fast as you make it back. Meaning, if it takes 10 days to drop $400, it’ll take 20 to claw it back—whether it’s an index, a stock, or whatever asset class pretends to have rules. Is this a hard-coded financial truth? Not at all. Just one of those market clichés that sounds profound until it doesn’t. Fear outruns greed, which is why I like trading the downside. But you have to be quick—hit enter fast, hit exit twice as fast. The problem? Fear paralyzes people, making it feel harder to capitalize on a drop than on a rally (but it is just a feeling). But if you’re detached, it doesn’t matter which way it moves—just that it moves. Does this work all the time? Obviously not. It’s one of those things that’s useful to know but rarely useful in practice.
For me, the drop started on February 20, and I exited on March 3 (not at the opening, I’m not an amateur). Didn’t squeeze more profit from the next leg down afterward. Do I care? No. Emotionless, remember?
Just for future reference, a lot of so-called professional bloggers (and that’s already generous) are blaming Trump. I don’t follow U.S. politics, just like I don’t follow politics in my own country—never noticed a difference no matter who’s in charge. This correction was flagged in January by some random blogger no one listens to (you are actually reading, joking). Trump or not, it was coming. The only thing politics (news) might have changed was the magnitude of the swings, but let’s be real, this move down was obvious.
Two quick things before we get to what actually matters:
- If you’re into technical analysis, you should remember that there are three rules (google them), and I’ve never seen one that says, “Technical analysis adjusts based on whoever’s making headlines.” If your analysis shifts based on news, you’re not doing technical analysis—you’re doing two things at once and getting both wrong.
- News can change Market direction for up to three days, max. Not always, but that’s the upper limit (see past Fed rate decision reactions for proof or 2018 when somebody started announcing something wink wink). News speeds things up or slows them down, but if the Market wants to go up or down, it will. You can announce whatever you want—Market couldn’t care less.
Had to change chart provider because drawing a few lines on the previous one was a complete pain in the ass.
What happened last week? Forecasts were calling for a bounce in the last days of February and the first days of March, followed by a continuation downward—though the whole thing had a bit of a bias, which I wasn’t a fan of. Sure, it worked this time, but forecasting while biased is dangerous; it makes you blind and only lets you see the things that confirm your theory. Mark Douglas talks about this a lot—how traders trap themselves by filtering out anything that contradicts their expectations. Target-wise, S2 or lower.
That anticipated “bounce” ended up looking more like a sideways chop between February 27 and March 3—so yeah, that part needs some work. Futures shot up before the open on Monday, making everyone think the Market was ready to rally, only for it to get sold off during the session, hitting an S2 low. Given Monday’s move, it wasn’t hard to see that we’d be flirting with November 2024’s low of $5,696 (blue dotted line), and sure enough, Tuesday’s low landed around $5,732. Then a day up, then another drop, with November 2024’s level holding the price nicely on Thursday.
And Friday? Well, if you’re a fan of technical analysis, you could call it indecision-to-reversal—or, if you prefer plain English, the Market just stood there, unsure whether to keep tanking or give the bounce another shot. The low for the day actually punctured November 2024’s low, which I don’t like, because for me, support and resistance levels should show a clear and near-immediate change of direction or pause. That “puncture” wasn’t as sharp as I would’ve liked a support level to behave, but it looks like the level still held the price quite nicely.
My outlook:I use a multi-timeframe setup from daily to yearly charts. Right now, the small charts look done going down (for the moment), the middle-sized charts still want to head south, but the big charts might not let them go much further. What does this mean? That any move up will need the medium-sized charts to get on board first—and that takes time. So, any rally attempt might be a short-lived trip rather than a lasting trend, and maybe that’s why I wasn’t expecting much action in March until the end of the month.
This week? Feels like rolling dice, to be honest (this is the reason why Up, Sideways and Down analysis are missing this week.). But if you pointed a gun at my face and said, “Tell me what’s going to happen or I’ll shoot you in the face,” I’d say: Down may be done for now, but don’t expect big moves up unless the mid-range charts start traveling that direction too. And if you open up some indicators (not newspapers—indicators, because that’s what we actually use in technical analysis), you might notice that, yes, the direction is still southbound, but many of them look like they’ve already arrived at their destination.
For reference, I’ve drawn November 2024’s low and the so-famous gap up during the Presidential Election. Being quite undecided, nothing can be left to chance.
