Late-Session Update With a bit less than two hours to go, SPX is...

Late-Session Update

With a bit less than two hours to go, SPX is up 29 points or +1.05%

What we appear to have is a gentlemen's agreement that the market must not abandon the SPX 2815 level because to do so is to live with a technical picture that leaves a bull market defeat open to consideration. It is difficult to understand or to trade against that logic on a short time frame that is prone to being moved by headlines or on a medium time frame that is influenced by economic data and central bank policy.   We discussed several weeks ago how shorting this thing outside intraday parameters would not be easy. The contrivance of last few sessions (as well as the unusually subdued action on the previous down days) might be compared to what we see in the Federal Aviation Administration's steadfast commitment to pretending nothing is wrong with the MAX, while people with common sense around the world will not allow that stuff into their airspace.

So now we wait to see how the market handles this juncture.  After that, short term traders will have to either define a new and tighter near term range - assuming the gentleman's agreement lasts - or go back to the previous one.

WSJ reported yesterday that Boeing has had a software fix for the nose dive issue for months, and it was delayed by the government shut down. As well, there is a public record where American pilots have given detailed accounts of the aircraft diving unexpectedly just after takeoff and requiring manual override to correct that descent.  That seems pretty clear. ES futures profile.