Simple But Not

Futures are up solidly in the pre-market which should keep pressure on the 1416.12 level in the cash S&P.  This is a key spot for near-term scenarios. Getting above it opens the door to 1430-1440 by potentially ruling out an impulse wave subdivision down (requiring the correction from the 1426.68 high to now be counted as a 1st wave down of 5).  It looks too much like a 3-wave structure to me, but it can be counted as 5, so there are some things I'll be looking for as a tell.

The first one is the simplest: if the correction was truly a 3-wave structure, it should be followed by a impulse wave higher.  Impulse waves are pretty straightforward, so there should be little difficultly getting above 1426.68.  Should the S&P get above 1416.12 and then back off for some reason below 1405 before heading higher, it could set up the potential for a stall around the 1418-1420 zone which would signal a bearish Gartley pattern (or a wave 2 top) and make a great area to short.

So today and tomorrow will likely be pivotal for the market's near-term direction.  Of course there are many other scenarios, but these are the simplest ones that I'm focusing on for now.  That's why it helps to write them down beforehand, because in real-time, when there's money at stake, it's not so simple.  That is when it often pays to simply know where you're wrong.