Seasonal Context & Events

Earnings season is officially underway, but don’t count on it to fuel much upside—CEOs might start trimming their forecasts, and future earnings could take a hit as the macro fog thickens. Options expiration is back on the radar, landing on the 17th this month—mark it down. That’s because the 18th is Good Friday, and the market will be taking the day off. Also, don’t expect any help from end-of-month flows—there aren’t any.

Key events include:

• 17th April 12:30UTC Initial Jobless Claims

Those events may or may not influence the opening direction and subsequent days.

The Trading Week Recap

Do you believe in miracles? Not in the religious sense—more the everyday kind, the ones we can’t quite explain with what we think we know. Personally, I’ve come around to the idea, thanks in part to Og Mandino’s The Greatest Miracle in the World. But here’s the catch: miracles don’t come from nowhere. They come from intent, from action—usually human. They’re not random magic; they’re mislabelled effort.

So why bring up miracles on a stock Market blog? Simple—I’m talking about what happened on Tuesday, April 8th. If you traded that opening rally to the upside, I’m sorry, but that wasn’t a miracle. That was a textbook case of ignoring the obvious. A +3% pop at the open while monthly indicators are free-falling and the weekly’s still heading south? That’s not divine intervention—that’s poor situational awareness dressed up in hopium.

Yes, the political climate may have added fuel to the fire. But blaming that for jumping long is like crediting gravity for tripping when you weren’t looking. The Market had been riding three straight days (quite) outside the Bollinger Bands—so that early morning bounce was purely technical, not inspirational. Weekly’s still extended, so we might see a short-term relief rally, maybe a few days. But don’t confuse that with trend reversal.

Quarterly and monthly momentum are still sliding downhill. Time to stop hoping for miracles and start getting comfortable with puts.

And it’s kind of funny—just a few days ago I was chatting with a friend, and out of nowhere she drops this line: “How can you be aware if you haven’t lived the full reality?” That one hit me. I actually paused for a second, just thinking, “Damn… that’s spot on.” I even told her, “I don’t know where you pulled that from, but it’s 100% real.”

Moral of the story? Timeframes exist for a reason. You can’t claim awareness from a 5-minute chart and pretend you’ve seen the full picture.

Not even going to dive into what happened the day after—you’ve probably already heard every excuse, explanation, and dramatic Twitter thread imaginable. But fine, maybe just a little, because there was something technical worth noting.

A bounce was due—that much was expected. The size of it? That’s where catalysts come in and do what they do. Now, was it clear when the bounce might show up? Honestly, yes—if you were paying attention to both the event window (you know, that classic 1–3 day market reaction rule) and if you happen to use Bollinger Bands without just treating them like decorative ribbons on your chart.

Here’s the setup on my daily charts:

• Thursday: Candle fully outside the bands, both bands expanding → bounce the next day? Nope.
• Friday: Same story—outside the bands, both still expanding → bounce on Monday? Still nope.
• Monday: Candle showed an upper wick poking back inside the bands, and both bands started to soften, shifting their trajectory → now that looked like a setup.

So Tuesday’s bounce? Not a surprise. Wick back inside, bands tightening—probabilities finally leaning that way.

Does this work 100% of the time? We’re talking about the Market, people—of course it doesn’t. Why did you even ask? If you’re looking for certainty, try a vending machine, not price action.

But let’s be real for a second—were you genuinely expecting a clean “V” reversal with higher timeframes (weekly, monthly) still trending down? Because that’s how you get your rally hopes shattered.

Now, if you were trading this—where was the exit? For me, it was Monday while driving back home (yes I did stop, safety first) . But if you were using intraday timeframes, you had your window well before 15:50 UTC. That was the market whispering “wrap it up” if you were listening.

What happened last week? The forecast where just randomly pointing “down”, I could not check the whole thing on Friday, so I had to take a guess on Thursday, moreover I mentioned I was expecting something (a bounce, really) between the 7th and the 10th. Why? As I’ve pointed out before, news of this magnitude usually impacts price for about 1 to 3 days—after that, it’s just the Market being the Market. Given the size of the headline, I expected its effect to carry through until around the 7th. But my magically calculated “DOI” (Dates of Interest)—those curious little time pockets where I tend to expect something to shift—had the 10th marked.

Skipping this section, since there wasn’t a proper forecast in the last article and the S&R levels were based on a reference point far off from Friday’s close. That said, if you look at the chart, a few of those levels still did their job—like good soldiers following orders, even if the general was half asleep.

Support & Resistance Levels

R3	5639
R2	5592
R1	5549
Close	5363
S1	5196
S2	5049
S3	4996

Forecasts

Up?
There’s a massive clusterfuck of resistance sitting overhead. Good luck pushing through that. Could it happen? Sure, anything can. But it’s like trying to sprint through molasses—technically possible, just not pretty or likely without help.

Sideways?
A push up into that resistance zone followed by a sideways chop? Totally plausible. Wouldn’t be the first time the market wandered aimlessly after slamming into a wall.

Down?
A drop to S1 would mean a 3.1% move, and S2 is sitting 5.8% lower. Volatility is still high and trending—these aren’t fantasy numbers. We’ve seen similar moves recently, and the tape doesn’t look ready to settle down just yet.

My Outlook:
Given the current S/R setup, the market would need to fight its way through that overhead traffic jam of resistance. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it probable? Not from where I’m sitting. Some annual reports are already out, and surprise—they didn’t price in or even mention the recent political-economic chaos in their shareholder letters. Fast forward 90 days, and we’ll be deep into July–August earnings season. Maybe by then, the effects (if any) will start to show—assuming they haven’t already been papered over. Until then, good luck. My charts on the investing side aren’t flashing buy, and honestly, I doubt they will for MONTHS. Any technical analysis book will tell you summer isn’t exactly prime time for buying—but hey, those authors weren’t writing with the last two weeks of global nonsense in mind.

Shorter-term? A move up toward R1–R2 looks reasonable, maybe even probable. But after that? There’s a 353-point gap between R1 and S1—roughly 6.3%. That’s not just resistance—it’s a full-blown mess. So pick your battles.