Trading Plan: S&P May 19, 2023

Context

We finally broke out of the trading range the S&P has been stuck in for the last 3 weeks to the upside closing at 4215.50 today. After hours trading is currently at 4216.50 after peaking at 4225.50 on low volume. Tomorrow is also Friday expiration for the primay May 19th options. I am hoping for continued upside pressure but suspect there's some risk we'll chop around and pin somewhere in the 4200-4215 range.

The Plan

I believe the prior resistance levels:

• 4176 - 4184
• 4205 - 4213 

have now been challenged a few times and have turned into weak support levels. I will wait to see how the 4205-4213 range holds if retested tomorrow, probably down to 4200 as well.

Short

If 4200 is breached I'll wait for a rebound to initiate a short position targeting 4185.

If 4197 breaks-down, take the 4196 trade to 4192. Buyers will likely attempt to reclaim 4197-4200, if they fail, I'd short into the mid-4180's.

If we go below 4176 I anticipate the 4156 range to act as the last support before we go back to the consolidation range we've seen for the last few weeks.

Below that, I'm watching 4133 but doubt we'll see it.

Long

I dont think I'm going to place too many trades tomorrow given the surrounding circumstances however i will be intently watching the weekly close because I think if we close the weekly candle above 4200 this will set the pace for next week's open.

I would like to see us break higher than 4225 before I'd get long here as I think a gap up is likely at the open. If the market rallies, I'm looking at 4243 as the nearest resistance from late Jan/early Feb.