Ready for the showdown?Yes ESS lost 1.5c to finish on 50c. Our...

Ready for the showdown?

Yes ESS lost 1.5c to finish on 50c. Our volume was average, just over 2.3m shares traded. Yesterday we broke our rise pattern, need to hold here to be on strong uptrend, maybe market helps us.

ASX Li stocks had a small decrease. Of the 54 stocks that I track, average loss was 1%.

Overnight US Li stocks were in meltdown. A number of stocks lost close to 6 to 8%, not sure what was going there.

What next -

Yesterday US indices again went down, but this time it was moderate - around 0.1 to 0.2%. ASX followed suit today in similar range.

Yesterday SP 500 closed on the yearly low and Nasdaq once again on a 2 year low. We got the PPI data yesterday, some parts were as expected, but some were not good - especially core PPI gain monthly of 0.4% instead of expected 0.2%. At this stage market took that data in its stride. Yesterday I had written that I am not expecting fireworks, both with PPI data as well as Fed minutes with reasons I had given - so it played accordingly.
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Chart Perspective - Same as yesterday - If its to go down, first good level test around 3500, though there are numbers above as well. If it has to go up, 3660 on SP 500 is a key number to overcome in first instance. If new is big, SP 500 level of 3400/3420 is key which can also be final bottom, if news is good, a re-test of recent high of 3800 in first instance. When a key event is there, like CPI data, charts can only help at different support levels, quantum of gain or drop will be dependent on the event.

So tonight we have CPI data. Last time we got more than expected and markets didn't like it. Difficult to say what will happen, but we can only hope.
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Personally after much thought and confusion I bought back one third of what I sold last week. My plan till yesterday was to wait and watch. 2 reasons I bought back partial - Firstly, lot of chart indicators are pointing towards some sort of reversal, some bounce - Yields, Dollar Index, VIX, lot of divergence, like HYG (high yield bonds) in positive trend while SP 500 downwards and few more. Secondly, yesterday we did not get a good PPI data. Still market opened in green and eventually fell small. Looks like there is a chance market may have already factored in lot of bad news (we are on yearly lows), other reason as I mentioned, punters may be more interested in main meal of CPI before making big moves. So I thought its worth getting into it, cautiously with one-third my pot. Risk-reward, if we get something good, we could get a nice high, bad data we may still go down but may be not much - all speculation though. Overall trend is still bearish - hence I have kept two-thirds back and will get in on confirmation.

So what will happen tonight? US Futures slightly in green. Asian markets generally red, but China in green. Bitcoin has held 19k, again. Volatility index VIX on 33.57, still in danger zone but surprisingly had a small decline yesterday.

This year has been special - we have had so many instances of 6 straight reds (SP 500) in a row. Before this it was rare instances (Yesterday in error I had written it was 3 days of red). But there are not many instances still that SP 500 has declined more than 6 days in row. Although tonight is dependent again on a binary event, probability is on our side of a green. Will that happen? Lets hope so. All the best.