Index Futures Net Changes and Settlements:
Foreign Markets, Fair Value and Volume:
- In Asia 7 out of 11 markets closed lower: Shanghai Comp -0.51%, Hang Seng -0.38%, Nikkei -0.13%
- In Europe 8 out of 13 markets are trading lower: CAC -0.47%, DAX -0.39%, FTSE +0.16%
- Fair Value: S&P +1.09, NASDAQ +13.69, Dow -16.18
- Total Volume: 852k ESU & 435 SPU traded in the pit
Today’s Economic Calendar:
Today’s economic calendar includes Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index 9:45 AM ET, Leading Indicators 10:00 AM ET, EIA Natural Gas Report 10:30 AM ET, Fed Balance Sheet and Money Supply 4:30 PM ET.
S&P 500 Futures: #ES Summer Doldrums And Extremely Low Volume
After a quiet overnight trade with a 9.00 handle range that drifted lower, the S&P 500 futures opened yesterday’s session at 2812.00 and pushed up to the early morning high of 2814.00 just after the bell. From there, the futures sold off in the first hour to what would be the low of day at 2706.76. After trading sideways the S&P’s started to break out as the 9:00 hour was closing, and a series of buy programs pushed the benchmark futures higher up to a late morning high of 2818.00 just after 11:00 am cst.
The ES drifted lower into the noon hour, printing 2812.75 just before 1:00, before rallying back up to 2818.00 at 2:30, and then to 2818.25 as the MiM’s 2:45 reveal was $197 million to buy MOC, breaking a two day streak where $2.6 billion was sold.
On the 3:00 cash close the futures printed 2817.00 before settling the day at 2815.75, up +4.50 handles, or +0.16%.
In the end, our view was right, forget trying to sell the early rallies and ‘just’ buy weakness. With volume in the ES nearing the lowest of the year, ‘thin to win’ has taken over. In terms of the ES’s overall tone, it acted firm. In terms of the days overall volume, only 852,000 contracts traded, and when you take out the 140,000 from Globex that drops the total down to only 712,000 contracts traded in the day session. Then, when you subtract 75% of that for HRT and algorithmic trading, (75% of 712,000 = 534,000) leaving only 178,000 for outright trading.That’s not much my friends…
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