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Market Outlook: Chinese industry slows again

Weakest industrial production in 17 years
March 14, 2019

Data out this morning showed that in January and February China’s industrial production grew at 5.3 per cent, lower than expected, down from December’s weak 5.7 per cent, and the slowest pace since 2002. The unusual two-month reporting is an attempt to smooth the effects of the Lunar New Year holiday in February. Adding to these woes mobile phone shipments dropped 20 per cent in February to 14.51 million handsets, the weakest in 6 years.

Facebook is once again in the eye of a storm as outages crash a number of its social media platforms. Starting at about 16:00 GMT UK users and those in the New York area and California were particularly hard hit, plus those in Europe suffering intermittent service. The company has not released details of the cause, but Instagram is up and working again though Whatsapp and Facebook still have issues.

DAX 30

Going nowhere fast as we sit at levels we were at in October. Note that yesterday Fiat Chrysler recalled 863,000 vehicles in the US because they did not meet federal emissions standards. Today in the UK Jaguar Land Rover will recall 44,000 because they emit more than the certified amount of carbon dioxide

 

SHORT TERM TRADER: Short at 11600; stop well above 11800. First target 10800.

 

POSITION TAKER:  Square.

FTSE 100

Another little doji as we dither despite the MACD being clearly bearish.

 

SHORT TERM TRADER:   Small short at 7120; stop above 7275. Target 6800.

 

POSITION TAKER:  Square.

S&P 500

Back up at this year’s (and December’s) high with a negative MACD. Bowing to international pressure, President Trump forced the US Federal Aviation Administration to ground all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from yesterday, citing new satellite data and evidence in the Ethiopian Air crash.

 

SHORT TERM TRADER:  Short at 2775; stop a bit above 2820. Target 2600.

 

POSITION TAKER:   Short at 2795; stop above 2825. Target 2600.

BRITISH POUND/US DOLLAR

All rather desperate stuff as parliamentarians make idiots of themselves and too many are still short of sterling, nursing either entrenched views or vague hopes. This week we have a potential bullish engulfing weekly candle straddling long term trend line resistance.

 

SHORT TERM TRADER:  Square.

 

POSITION TAKER:  Square.

EURO/US DOLLAR

Inching up for a third consecutive day from the long-term support area around 1.1260.

 

SHORT TERM TRADER:  Tiny long at 1.1284; stop below 1.1800. Target 1.1460.

 

POSITION TAKER:  Square.

GOLD

Momentum is still just bearish, but does anyone really care about what gold’s doing?

                            

SHORT TERM TRADER:  Square.

 

POSITION TAKER:  Short at 1328; stop above 1326. Target 1255.

Nicole Elliott is a long-standing member and Fellow of the Society of Technical Analysts and has taken over the IC’s trading coverage.  She is regularly interviewed and quoted by the financial media, is a conference speaker, and author of several books on charting.