Thursday March 12th – Initial Jobless Claims
Todays important data is all released at 8:30 a.m. ET.
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SPX – The markets are moving higher, lower, and then rising back up at the close, giving us a Doji candle of indecision. As mentioned yesterday, we could be crawling under the 20 ema and still push higher later.
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SPX – I drew this to show how that might look. It could be similar to what we saw through Februarys chop.
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THE NASDAQ is crawling at the 20 ema. The 2 boxes are likely 2 daily cycles. If so, yesterday was day 2. Under these conditions some stocks may do better than others, and I am seeing that with Rare Earth and A couple of Drone stocks, Aviation, etc.
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WTIC – so far Oil has Popped, dropped, and pushed higher again.
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THE USD has been churning sideways and this was expected because of resistance that is overhead and was pointed out on the big picture chart. I’ll show you an update of that on the next chart.
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THE USD is churning sideways (as seen above) is at a resistance area. We’ll see if it can overcome resistance over time.
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GOLD still has a low at day 20, since day 24 was not a new low. I have been expecting a dip to a new low for a dcl, but it may not happen. We may have an early low at day 20, but that doesn’t match what I see with Silver…
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SILVER bottomed after Gold so it is showing the last recent low as day 16. I have been expecting one more dip to give us a dcl, but it would likely be a fast dip and rebound if we get it.
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GDX already gave us a low on day 24 with that reversal at the 50sma. GDX has been following Gold, but if Gold and Silver both dip quickly to a dcl overnight or premarket with the jobless claims, and then recover after the opening bell, they may make new lows but GDX may not break its’ lows, since it has a low on day 24 it may resist breaking that low.
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I just want to share an observation with you here. Buying has been tricky in this chop, but I noticed a couple of the stocks in the Aluminum sector near the highs again. That is much better than the copper stocks are doing.
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‘Our Copper stocks were looking excellent heading into March. When Gold and Silver ‘peaked’ recently with the Iran war, you may have noticed that it affected Copper sector too. I owned TGB and WRN and they took a dive with the precious metals sector. This was TGB breaking out in late February (I owned it)…
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TGB then sold off in early March with Gold, Silver, and the Miners. This became an ugly chart, losing the 50sma, and WRN is even uglier, but…
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I am seeing that Aluminum stocks are being affected in a different way.
I looked at CENX, AA, CSTM, etc and they remained bullish. I was stopped out of TGB and WRN with small losses, and I don’t love the way they look yet, but I might be willing to try one of the Aluminum stocks with this recent set up. I think that CSTM is too choppy, but it is at the highs. CENX & AA look good and are also near the highs. Take a look…
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AA didn’t crash the way TGB and WRN did, and it looks like it may break out from this consolidation.
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CENX dropped in early February but then strengthened and also remained healthy looking. I don’t like these wide swings, but you’ll notice that CENX is now at the highs as of yesterday, so the aluminum stocks did remain bullish.
Today we’ll see what the jobless claims report does to the futures and the markets. Some stocks are chopping higher, like the Rare Earth stocks and some Drones, etc, so they have been good for some trades, but I think that the best buy will be at the next ICL after these markets calm down (and maybe the war situation slows down too). Enjoy your Thursday trading.
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~ALEX
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BITCOIN has not changed much, but volume did seem to increase a little, so I drew an ambitious run higher. It has been extremely choppy and may not be able to get as high as I have drawn it, but it was able to get above the 50sma on the last choppy run in January, so I drew it that way. I think that an excellent buy will come in 2026 after another sell off or 2. I am seeing that some Crypto stocks are holding up well despite Bitcoins drop and they may be sell down a little more later, but they seem to be resisting the selling to a degree and could become very strong on that next run. We’ll be looking at that when the time comes.
