Evening Briefing for September 17th

* MARKET THEMES FROM THURSDAY: Stocks started the day higher, but fell back into their overnight range, with ES making non-confirmed lows before a late session bounce pushed us back into the day's range. In all, it was a mixed day: advancing issues trailed decliners by 361 issues. Gold and oil came off their highs as well, as we saw some firming in the U.S. dollar. For the first day in a while, we saw selling pressure pick up during the day, as we rejected value above 1069 in the ES contract. That sets Thursday's highs and lows as important reference points for Friday's trade. We continued to see strength among stocks, as 2046 issues hit 65-day highs, against only 97 lows. Demand and Supply were both below 50 and relatively balanced, suggesting range trade and putting us on breakout alert.

* OVERSEAS/OVERNIGHT NUMBERS: 1:00 AM CT - Germany, PPI. Earnings due out Friday can be found here.

* WORTH READING:

-- Volatile trading in high yield debt; hat tip to a savvy reader and trader;

-- GOOG gets into the book business;

-- Proposed ban on flash orders;

-- The crowd isn't so crowded when mining wisdom on the Web; thanks to an alert reader for this link;

-- Thanks to a reader for the alert on this post about excess shipping capacity;

-- Gasoline prices higher, but core inflation tame.
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