Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Australia, China, Hong Kong and Japan lost more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland and London are down 2% or more. About 30 min before the employment data was released and 90 before the open, futures here in the States pointed towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
Here are the employment numbers:
unemployment rate: 9.1% (from 9.1%)
nonfarm payrolls: flat (vs. 53K estimated)
private payrolls: will post when I see the number
average workweek: down 6 minutes to 34.2
hourly earnings: down 0.1% to $23.09 (vs. up 0.1% expected)
The S&P futures, which were down 10, are now down 17.
Let me repeat some things I said yesterday: The market has been on a nice run, but the overall trend is still down, volume on the move up has mostly been weakish and we’re starting to run into overhead resistance. Over the last month the market has gone down, then up, then down and now up. And there has been very little pause at the tops and bottoms. You can hope for whatever you want, but it’s entirely possible the indexes simple head down here. We’ve had several good long trades, but those trades may now be over. I hope not. It’d be nice to get another round of breakouts and an opportunity to short at higher prices, but I don’t get to order such movement. Be ahead of the curve taking profits. That means you take profits when you have them; you don’t use a loose stop in hopes of riding a trading for everthing it’s worth. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Sep 2)”
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I guess we won’t be hearing from our fellow blogger Neal
for a long time to come due to the fact that he will not
be posting here until the Dow hits 12,300. HW
No doubt. But we don’t worry about it …
awesome is very proad of his little dead cat bounce that ended at y/days highs
and is now living it up in soho and learning the fed twist for his next act
the extent of the move down is not clear yet,but will be impulsive with both hedgies and mutuals selling y/day
i have just taken europe/usa preopen profits and need some neal bulls to appear
It will be interesting to see how the market trades in the 1st hour or 2 of trading today. I would look at SPX 1190 to see if that area can produce some support and a potential reversal. A reversal off of that level(+/- a few pts) may procduce a rally back to test the 80 week SMA at 1210 for the big showdown. A FRI close above 1210 could very well mean a retest of 1230 and a new higher high (50 day EMA at 1234). A failure and reversal at or below 1210 and that may the low risk opportunity to get short for a longer term trade.
By the way, on the daily charts, the RSI and Stochastics are set up for an overbought downside reversal ending this rally from 1122 which occured on declining volume.
cash cfd spx price is currently 1180 preopen
bear markets rarely give u the chance to get set up
One final thought. The further we get into Sept/Oct the less time this stock market has to go higher, in my opinon. For those who pay atention to time cycles, there appears to a number of cycles that should begin to exert downside pressure on the stock market through 2012 thru 2014 – if you believe in such things. To my way of thinking, this lines up with what I believe to be the longer term fundamental picture, i.e. the growing recognition that we are in a deleveraging/deflationary economic environment that the FED & GOV are powerless to control, much less stop. That we have gotten to this place is due in large part to a failure of the FED & the GOV to restructure debt (let the sharholders & stock holders bear the loss of the Banking sector) instead of bailing out the “too big to fail” banking & Wall Streets crooks (that’s an editorial personal comment). We can only attempt to shelter ourselves from the fallout and perhaps even profit from it. I hope I haven’t bored anyone with my thoughts.
re: Pete M book signing event this week. Will it
be at Borders or Barnes & Nobles? Do you need a good
managing agent? I am available for 10% plus all
expenses paid, of course. I have rock star experience.
I’ve probably posted too many long winded comments since the beginning of AUG what with the summer doldrums and not a lot of client contact due to vacations. That will change next week as I won’t have the time, so I hope to be more brief and to the point as well as more selective as to when I do comment. But, thanks for the offer. However, almost anything I have to say has been said by others before and better than I could.
well said and i do follow gann time cycles
but i love my loverly little 5 min trades
By the way HW (in ref to your remarks the other day/re Beatles popularity)…I met Ringo S at an AA mtg in London in the mid nineties and he said that his HP was bigger than the Beatles !
AssieJS – if we completed a larger wave 2 (is that your read?) yesterday, it seems we’re in the early stages of wave 3 given the impulsive move so far, would you agree? If so, where do you see a short term downside target? I’m watching the 1165 area for some kind of bounce if SPX 1175 can’t hold. It looks to me at this point that it’ll be difficult to retest 1210.
I have a thought and a suggestion (I’ll admit to some selfish motivation on my part). This Labor Day weekend is a perfect time to step back and take a look at the big picture using the daily, weekly and monthly charts. I’m sure Jason will have some valuable insights to share over the weekend as well. Whether you’re an investor, long term trader, swing trader or daytrader doesn’t matter. With the exception of perhaps one person who comments on this site, my assumption is we find technical analysis to be a valid way to assess risk/reward when investing/trading. Those that don’t comment probably have various degrees of experience with technical analysis. We can all help each other by sharing our thoughts/questions respectfully. Jason gives us the opportunity to use this site to do that, so let’s use it wisely. Most of what I’ve learned about technical analysis over 40 years has been through others willng to share their knowledge (often learned through bitter experience).
I say all of the above because to me, we’re at a meaningful stage in the stock market from a technical perspective. Come next TUE, let’s have done our homework and be prepared to comment with clarity. Does that all make sense or am I off base? I’ll back off if it doesn’t – no hard feelings.
Makes perfect sense to me. 🙂
yes,w/e’s are good for that,Pete
whilst i will be trading usa futures sun nite/mon morn my time
my current felling is the markets need more time to consolidate,but may not get it
with the europe thing–if it was only usa i would say sub 5 down but if its a actual wave 3 starting,then i dont know
so to add that horible word –fundamentals
europe is bust -no growth germany slowing and banks bust with dud soverign debt and no solution—the question is could we see another leemans,but worse
the answer isnt in the charts yet—-but maybe in the german dax or even the euro
the big bank hedgies are scard and thats all i need to know
so for me ,with all the unknowns its easier to trade the reality of the intraday trend
that is a known for me and is how im set up
but i can trade 2 time frames–with one broker have a sell hold situation for a impulsive move ie trending and with another broker for daytrading ,which is good for corrective phases
the market is sure borring atm –most gone already for long w/e–sideways since open
may sleep for awhile and catch the close—-possitioning for long w/e may be important
As this day continues, it appears more & more likely that SPX 1190-1195 may be a maximum upside target and shorting opportunity. My take is that we could see a sharp move down from this current 1176-1186 range as we approach the close (especially if 1165 is taken out) with many aggressive bears willing to stay short over the long weekend in expectation of a seaonally week month of SEPT.
At 2:30 EDT, if the SPX is going to rally, it seems to me that now is the time from this recent new low.
Several unfilled downside gaps have appeared since 1PM on the 2 minute charts which seem to validate impulsive bearish behavior. each rally fails at previous congestion area.
This market is now vulnerable to increased downside pressurein the last hour of trading. 1165+/- 5 pts needs to hold. If 1160 is breached bears will probably think about staying short over the long weekend.
Thanks Pete
we are at piviot points on all atm which may give some support buyt i too am looking at 1165 as a key area
AussieJS – my 2 minute chart had a gap just filled around 1176 with another gap above at 1180. I’m guessing, with 20 minutes to trade (a long time in scalp trading, I know)that perhaps everyone wants to be flat into the weekend so we’re looking at profit taking from very profitable short side day traders.
yes that Pete that all the piviots were hit inc 1170 piviot–these are points were instos had their buy/sell orders preset–so they would have started closing out their positions
i got set at the highs of that tinny bounce just before close for the asian/europe session on mon—-but it costs me interest on the margin to hold over w/e and i dont normally
Just right points?I would be aware that as anyone who in reality doesnt write on blogs a lot (in fact, this can be my first submit), I dont assume the time period lurker is very turning into to a non-posting reader. Its no longer your fault in the least , however possibly the blogosphere may come up with a better, non-creepy title for the 90% folks that experience studying the content material .