The FTSE 100 is at a significant point

published 22 November 2013

On Wednesday, I outlined my thoughts on the technical position of the FTSE. It had made a new high and was backing off that high while travelling along my solid tramline pair.

This morning, the market is at an interesting juncture. I therefore thought I would follow up on Wednesday's analysis.This was the picture on Wednesday:

The nature of the move off the 6,818 high suggested a corrective move, not a new downtrend yet. This move consists of several highly-overlapping waves. And it is the deep penetration of each wave into the area of the previous wave that gives the game away.

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That is why I suggested that the odds slightly favoured a move up out of the tramline pair, rather than down.

To cancel this assessment, I would need to see a sharp move down into new lows. That has not happened (yet).

Will the market break through my tramline?

Late on Wednesday, the market rallied to the upper line and made another hit. But then it was knocked down again.

This shows the power of tramlines upper tramlines represent strong resistance to rallies.

So the market decided to keep trading between the tramlines and no trading signal was flashed. Generally, when the market is trading between your tramlines, no new positions are indicated.

But then, the market girded up its loins. And this morning it is knocking on the door of the upper tramline again.

Will it break through this time? And if it does, will the break be a head fake or a genuine move into new highs above 6,918?

The fact of the matter is, with six touch points on my upper tramline any break is sure to be significant.

John is is a British-born lapsed PhD physicist, who previously worked for Nasa on the Mars exploration team. He is a former commodity trading advisor with the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and worked in a boutique futures house in California in the 1980s.

He was a partner in one of the first futures newsletter advisory services, based in Washington DC, specialising in pork bellies and currencies. John is primarily a chart-reading trader, having cut his trading teeth in the days before PCs.

As well as his work in the financial world, he has launched, run and sold several 'real' businesses producing 'real' products.