Aug 6 S&P 500 showing gaps and S&R futures emini

This is a longer term chart showing a 50 % retracement target to 1335, this is exactly where we have an open gap that has not been filled.

We also have some downside open gaps that have not been filled.

1340 is the 200 MA on the monthly chart also.

we have opportunities in both direction.

This chart is showing a few open Gaps. The one that is changing my perspecitve is at 1335 area.[9:35:53 AM] Brightstone (Joel) says: This looks to me as a set up for an investor trap. Considering this is pre election, and with the movements in currency dollar strength, Oil price decreases and the smoothing over of the subprime crisis and bank failures, this new target seems completely reasonable to me. This is sort of a bull trap. I noticed that my short bias has influenced my trading and was searching for a way to leverage sentiment and this was staring me in the face. The 50% retracement is also at the 1335 area. The pattern is an ascending triangle with accumulation. The aggressive buyers outnumbering sellers since the temporary bottom has been put in.

If it completed to 35, we would have an ascending wedge.....I will be watching volume too. I can't imagine a 3 million volume upmove day like 7 - 16 to push us through.

Aug 6 economy today

Freddie Mac, the U.S. mortgage-finance company hobbled by record foreclosures, slashed its dividend at least 80 percent after posting a quarterly loss that was three times wider than analysts' estimates. Freddie dropped as much as 17 percent in New York trading and the larger Fannie Mae declined 14 percent on mounting concern that the government-chartered companies will sacrifice shareholders to bolster capital and avoid a bailout by the Treasury. Freddie doubled its reserves for future home-loan losses to $2.8 billion. Freddie has 22,000 properties in foreclosure, the most since the company was created in 1970 during the Vietnam War, and now anticipates losing 26 percent on each loan, up from 22 percent. McLean, Virginia-based Freddie has plunged 76 percent this year on concern the company may not have enough capital to overcome delinquencies on the $2.2 trillion of mortgages it owns and guarantees.

Crude oil futures have tumbled more than 20 percent since touching a record $147.27 a barrel in New York on July 11, a threshold often seen as the start of a bear market. Oil fell as low as $117.50 a barrel, amid signs of a global economic slowdown likely to curtail already weakening demand. The dollar today touched its highest in more than seven weeks against the euro, lessening the appeal of commodities as an inflation hedge. The decline follows a one-year doubling of prices as the dollar weakened, demand in Asia grew and Iran's nuclear program spurred concern that the country, the Middle-East's second- biggest oil producer, might face a military attack from Israel.