Spiders (SPY) Recovers Back to 50DMA With VIX Faltering

It’s a rather basic chart, but technically speaking, SPY has been quite resilient despite the market gyrations.

The 50 day moving average is right at present levels of SPY 272 with the 200 day moving average at 256.  Since the February market sell-off and correction, the rips to the upside have failed to achieve SPY 280 but been supported at SPY 265.

Late this afternoon, a debriefing from White House Press Secretary noted that the President would sign off on trade tariffs as early as tomorrow.  When Press Secretary Sanders was asked  if countries will be able to get exemptions from tariffs, she offered the following:

“We expect that the President will sign something by the end of the week. And there are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security and possibly other countries as well based on that process,” she said Wednesday. “That will be a case by case and country by country basis. It would be determined whether or not there is a national security exemption.”

Equities have rallied off their intraday lows and if the details surrounding the tariffs prove innocuous enough to investors when detailed publicly tomorrow, the market could gather steam, moving higher.  But the week will end yet with another key piece of economic information in the way of the NonFarm Payroll report due out Friday.  Today’s ADP report showed great private sector employment strength and tends to foreshadow strength in the Nonfarm Payroll report. Moreover, investors will be looking closely at the wage data with Friday’s payroll report.

Although it started the day higher by nearly 12%, the VIX has given up all of its earlier gains/fear in favor of complacency with the VIX falling back just below 18.

Vix futures have also followed suit with both front month contracts falling in value during the trading session, retracing all gains from earlier today.