Downside Bias = Downside Day

Good Morning Traders,

As of this writing 4 AM EST, here's what we see:

US Dollar: Jun. USD is Down at 99.930.

Energies: April Crude is Up at 49.20.

Financials: The June 30 year bond is Down 2 ticks and trading at 148.30.

Indices: The June S&P 500 emini ES contract is 25 ticks Higher and trading at 2376.50.

Gold: The April gold contract is trading Down at 1228.70. Gold is 53 ticks Lower than its close.

Initial Conclusion

This is not a correlated market. The dollar is Down- and crude is Up+ which is normal and the 30 year bond is trading Lower. The Financials should always correlate with the US dollar such that if the dollar is lower then bonds should follow and vice-versa. The indices are Up and Crude is trading Up which is not correlated. Gold is trading Down which is not correlated with the US dollar trading Down. I tend to believe that Gold has an inverse relationship with the US Dollar as when the US Dollar is down, Gold tends to rise in value and vice-versa. Think of it as a seesaw, when one is up the other should be down. I point this out to you to make you aware that when we don't have a correlated market, it means something is wrong. As traders you need to be aware of this and proceed with your eyes wide open.

Asia traded mixed with half the exchanges higher and the other half lower. As of this writing Europe is trading mainly lower with the exception of the London exchange which is fractionally higher at this hour.

Possible Challenges To Traders Today

– FOMC Member Dudley Speaks at 6 AM EST. This is major.

– Current Account is out at 8:30 AM. This is major.

Treasuries

We've elected to switch gears a bit and show correlation between the 30 year bond (ZB) and The YM futures contract. The YM contract is the DJIA and the purpose is to show reverse correlation between the two instruments. Remember it's liken to a seesaw, when up goes up the other should go down and vice versa.

Yesterday the ZB made it's move at around 8:30 AM with no real economic news to speak of. The ZB hit a low at around that time and the YM hit a high. If you look at the charts below ZB gave a signal at around 8:30 AM and the YM was moving lower at the same time. Look at the charts below and you'll see a pattern for both assets. ZB hit a low at around 8:30 AM and the YM hit a high. These charts represent the newest version of Trend Following Trades and I've changed the timeframe to a 30 minute chart to display better. This represented a long opportunity on the 30 year bond, as a trader you could have netted about 30 plus ticks per contract on this trade. Each tick is worth $31.25. We added a Donchian Channel to the charts to show the signals more clearly.

Charts Courtesy of Trend Following Trades built on a NinjaTrader platform Click on an image to enlarge it.

Bias

On Friday we gave the markets a downside bias as both the Bonds and Gold were trading higher yesterday morning and this does not bode well for an upside market. The Dow dropped 9 points, the S&P dropped 5 and the Nasdaq gained 1. Today we aren't dealing with a correlated market however our bias is to the upside.

Could this change? Of Course. Remember anything can happen in a volatile market.

Commentary

Yesterday we gave the markets a downside bias as both the Bonds and Gold were trading higher. All we did was to follow our rules for Market Correlation and as usual they didn't disappoint us. The markets did drop but fortunately not by much. This is the aspect that traders need to realize when it comes to market direction; it isn't the amount but what happens by the end of the trading session that matters. Today we are again light on economic news as we have an Fed member speaking at 6 AM and the Current Account later on in the AM.