SPX, INDU, NDX -- while The Fed Prepares for the Playoffs

This week, the Fed meets to discuss whether or not they should choose an official mascot (in the form of a cartoon animal) and start referring to themselves as "The Fighting Fed," in preparation for the eventual final showdown with the rest of the world's central banks, at the culmination of the ongoing Currency Wars.

At the Fed's last meeting, Janet Yellen announced that the Fed had already chosen their official team colors (they chose the colors "clear" and "plaid"), so we're looking forward to the unveiling of the Fed's new team uniforms on Wednesday -- just in time for this weekend's big game against the PBOC.  Ben Bernanke will be on hand to help retire his jersey.

Of course I'm only kidding about some of that (though I'm not entirely sure which part).  But either way, we do find ourselves in the midst of a Fed Week, and that means the market will be waiting with baited breath to hear whether the Fed is "cautiously optimistic" about raising interest rates, or "optimistically cautious" about keeping rates steady. 

The charts still seem to show a market that is, overall, somewhat undecided.  SPX is attempting to breakout from its multi-month range, but hasn't quite done so yet; NDX has broken out from a continuation pattern; INDU is trading near the upper edge of its multi-month trading range; TRAN is still trading in the lower half of its range.

Perhaps these markets are waiting from a cue from the Fed to get on the same page, but overall, I'm not seeing the current picture as terribly conducive to conclusive wave counts -- I'll cover that in more detail on INDU's second chart below.

Let's start with INDU, which is still within its range:

 

To get an idea of how many options are possible from an Elliott Wave perspective, I've outlined the obvious ones on the INDU chart below, and listed the simple vs. complex ways to view things:

NDX, on the other hand, has broken out, in an apparent repeat of its last range and breakout:

For SPX's chart, I'm just going to keep things super-simple for today's update:

In conclusion, various indices have continued to give somewhat mixed messages, and may be awaiting word from the Fed before getting on the same page.  Right now, there isn't much that makes me want to trade this market for more than short-term scalps, so I feel that (at this exact moment, anyway) there's nothing significant to add beyond Friday's update.  Trade safe.