Index Futures Net Changes and Settlements:
Foreign Markets, Fair Value and Volume:
*As of 7:00 a.m. CST
Today’s Economic Calendar:
Today’s economic calendar includes MBA Mortgage Applications 7:00 AM ET, Charles Evans Speaks 8:00 AM ET, New Home Sales 10:00 AM ET, Esther George Speaks 10:00 AM ET, State Street Investor Confidence Index 10:00 AM ET, EIA Petroleum Status Report 10:30 AM ET, Survey of Business Uncertainty 11:00 AM ET, and Robert Kaplan Speaks 7:00 PM ET.
S&P 500 Futures: Headline Hell Sends The S&P Sharply Lower
Chart courtesy of Scott Redler @RedDogT3 – $spx futures -9 after yesterday’s volatility/outside reversal down. Spx failed to hold 2999 and closed below 2982. For today, we’ll see if 2957 holds or do we fill the gap down to 2940 area. (Impeachment proceedings raises volatility around the World).
During Monday nights Globex session, the S&P 500 futures traded up to 3012.25 after China said they would start purchase more soybeans, then pulled back to print a low at 3001.50, and opened Tuesday’s regular trading hours (RTH) 3004.75.
After the 8:30 CT bell, the ES initially sold off down to 3001.25, before quickly turning around and trading up to 3009.25. Not long after, I put this out in our forum:
IMPRO:Dboy:(9:59:33 AM) : kinda think we could be getting close to a pre-Trump UN high
Sure enough, once Trump started to speak the ES sold off down to 2996.75, then popped back up to 3004.75, before heading back down to a new low at 2994.25. The hits just kept coming though, and once the headlines hit the tape about democrats agreeing to start impeachment hearings, the futures tanked down to 2958.50, down -53 handles from the Globex high.
Trump impeachment headlines, Iran being responsible for the Saudi oil field attack and Giuliani saying he had evidence of criminality against Hunter Biden in Ukraine.
After another small pop and drop, two more headlines hit the tape. The first one was that the Saudis don’t want war to break out, and the other was about Nancy Pelosi making an announcement at 5:00.
The ES ripped up to the 2980.00 area, and then chunked back down to 2960.75 at 2:30 as the MiM went from $1 billion to sell, to over $1.6 billion to sell. On the 2:45 cash imbalance reveal the futures traded up to 2970.00, then printed 2969.25 on the 3:00 cash close, and settled at 2771.75 on the 3:15 futures close, down -25.50 handles.
I guess in a world of hot and cold, I didn’t see this decline coming, but I don’t think the bears did either. In terms of the ES’s overall tone, the ferocity and speed of the selloff was pretty amazing. It was one bad headline after another. In terms of the days overall trade, 1.85 million ES futures contracts traded, with most of that coming in the final three hours.