Upside Day = Upside Markets

US Dollar: Mar. USD is Down at 88.630.

Energies: Mar '18 Crude is Up at 61.22.

Financials: The Mar 30 year bond is Down 5 ticks and trading at 143.07.

Indices: The Mar S&P 500 emini ES contract is 76 ticks Higher and trading at 2716.00.

Gold: The Feb gold contract is trading Down fractionally at 1357.90.  Gold is 1 tick Lower than its close.

Initial Conclusion

This is not a correlated market. The dollar is Down- and Crude is Up+  which is normal but 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 S&P is Higher and Crude is trading Up+ which is not correlated. Gold is trading Up+ which is 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.

At this hour all of Asia is trading Higher with no exceptions.  As of this writing all of Europe is trading Higher as well.

Possible Challenges To Traders Today

• PPI m/m is out at 8:30 AM EST.  This is major.

• Core PPI is out at 8:30 AM EST.  This is major.

• Empire State Mfg Index is out at 8:30 AM EST.  This is major.

• Philly Fed Mfg Index is out at 8:30 AM EST.  This is major.

• Unemployment Claims are out at 8:30 AM. This is major.

• Capacity Utilization Rate is out at 9:15 AM EST.  This is major.

• Industrial Production m/m is out at 9:15 AM.  This is major.

• NAHB Housing Market Index is out at 10 AM.  This is major.

• Natural Gas Storage is out at 10:30 AM EST.  This is major.

• TIC Long-Term Purchases is out at 4 PM EST.

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 AM EST before the  economic news was released.  The ZB hit a High at around that time and the YM hit a Low.  If you look at the charts below ZB gave a signal at around 8 AM EST and the YM was moving Higher at the same time. Look at the charts below and you'll see a pattern for both assets. ZB hit a High at around 8 AM and the YM hit a Low.  These charts represent the newest version of MultiCharts and I've changed the timeframe to a 30 minute chart to display better.  This represented a Shorting opportunity on the 30 year bond, as a trader you could have netted about 30 ticks per contract on this trade.  Each tick is worth $31.25.

Charts Courtesy of MultiCharts built on an AMP platform.

 

Bias

Yesterday we gave the markets an Upside bias and the markets didn't disappoint.  The Dow gained 253 points and the other indices gained ground as well.  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 an Upside bias as the USD and Crude were both trading Lower yesterday morning and this usually reflects an Upside day.  The markets didn't disappoint as the Dow flew into triple digit gains and this was with supposedly not too stellar inflation data.  Today we have a virtual tsunami of economic data with 10 different reports.  Could this change direction?