End of the week converging with end of the month is an appropriate recipe for caution, especially when the market delivers one of its best monthly performances in quite some time. October bears appear to have already visited in September and August and  hibernated early in October. Combine the above with the ingredients of positive, negative, and neutral economic data and most will scratch their heads. It is no wonder that the stock market sold off during the second half of the trading session and closed relatively unchanged.

The SP-500 closed @ 2079.36 (-10.05 / -0.48%). The Nasdaq-100 ended @ 4648.83 (-21.94 / -0.47%) and the Rusell-2000 displayed the most relative strength @ 1161.86 (-3.77 / -0.32%).

The VIX closed @ 15.07 (+0.46 / +3.15%).

Treasury rates gave back some of their gains with the 10-Yr @ 21.51 (-0.22 / -1.01%) and the 30-Yr@ 29.33 (-0.32 / -1.08%).

The US Dollar Index’s retreat from resistance continued as it closed @ 96.92 (-0.29 / -0.30%).

Our two key commodities delivered another day of mixed performance. Weakness in Gold persists as it is now testing support at its 55-day moving average and closed @ 1141.70 (-3.80 / -0.33%). WTI Crude Oil finished the week with a key bullish reversal pattern to end  @ 46.39 (+0.33 / +0.72%).

The Dow Jones Real Estate Index finished the session @ 295.16 (-2.33 / -0.78%). While the Dow Jones Home Construction Index diverged from the rest of the market into positive territory @ 577.74 (+6.78 / +1.19%), it was unable to surmount resistance at its 22-day moving average.

Daily Chart Analysis

The market took a well deserved rest at its resistance line, i.e. bottom channel of the previous uptrend. Let’s see if it can surmount this challenge next week. Until then, remain Hillbent for the Market Direction…