The bears finally put in an appearance across the board yesterday, with the FTSE 100 retreating from the 7790 level that it has struggled to break all week. The S&P made a new high at 2807 and then also recoiled sharply, dropping down to 2770 before a bit of a bounce towards the close, to manage 2780. The FTSE 100 found support at S3 at 7720 out of hours, though if today is weak again, we should see 7700, and maybe a bit lower. 7795 is still resistance that the bulls need to break to push towards 7840 this week. Bit of a make or break day today!
Cryptocurrencies took a pasting yesterday with many alt-coins losing considerably. Ripple sank as much as 40 percent and Ethereum dropped 26 percent. Bitcoin found support just above 10,000, quite a drop from the 20k seen at Christmas time, after various countries start looking into cracking down on cryptocurrency "trading".
It has been a strong start to 2018 and yesterday we saw a bit of caution enter as traders switched mindset to thinking it has risen too far too fast. Earnings were coming through with good results, Citigroup (NYSE:C) posted healthy earnings and management discussed possible significant investor payouts from the bank’s windfall stemming from a major tax cut. General Motors (NYSE:GM) surprised the market by predicting steady profits in 2018 and growth in 2019. And UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) raised its adjusted profit projection due to the recent tax overhaul.
I had 7787 resistance yesterday from the 2 hour chart, though was also thinking that it might break through that early in the day to test the 7820 level before the drop back to the bottom of the Raff channels.