Before the Open (Dec 2)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy employment numbers day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. India and Australia moved up 2.2% and 1.4% respectively. China dropped 1.1%. Europe is currently up across the board; almost every index is up at least 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a large gap up open for the cash market, but this could change because as of this writing, we’re still 15 minutes from the employment data being released.

Here are the employment numbers:
unemployment rate: 8.6% (from 9.0%)
nonfarm payrolls: up 120K
private payrolls: will post when I get the number
average workweek: stayed same – 34.3 min
hourly earnings: down 0.1% to 23.18
S&P futures were up about 17 when then numbers came out. The reaction has been very muted…slight move up, then back down.
This has been a heck of a week. The psychology of the market has greatly improved. The technicals look much better. News from Europe, which has been holding the market hostage, has improved greatly. Things are much better on all fronts today than they were at the beginning of the week.
When the week started I was looking to buy a complete washout or sell a dead-cat bounce. We got a bounce, but I’m not sure it’s of the dead-cat variety. Put a gun to my head and ask me where the market will be at the end of the year, I’d say higher than it is now. Things could change because the news can change, but for now, that’s where I lean.
Here’s the SPX 30-min chart. Today’s open will be slightly above resistance, and then there’ll be much more resistance between 1260 & 1290. With the market moving straight down in the middle of November and straight up this week, it’d be nice if the indexes moved sideways for a few days to allow the charts to rest and set up in tradeable patterns. 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 (Dec 2)”

  2. An interesting day so far. While out on appointments this AM, I missed the trading around the NFP numbers. Missing from the headlines is the fact that wages declined, weekly hours worked remains below what you’d expect if the job market was recovering, and savings declined. But who wants to point out the negatives when we have a stock mzarket to rally?
    I’ll just say this: from an EW perspective, on the hourly chart, there’s a text book 5 wave structure completed this morning from SPX 1158. Unless that’s a completion of a larger “C” wave from either the OCT or AUG lows, this is bullish – at least in the short term. From this morning’s high, I can count 5 waves down (wave “a”?)in on a 5 min chart & we should see a rally above 1251 in what may prove to be wave “b”, to be followed by another move down to the 1232-1235 area for a “c” to complete an initial 3 wave corrective pattern of the 5 waves up from 1158. It could evolve differently into a larger corrective pattern. I’d like to short between 1252-1256.

  6. The failure to move lower below 1248 down to the opening gap leads me to think SPX may retest 1253 first, so I’ll cover one short position at 1250 and the other at 1251.

  7. the move from europes close has been nothing more than whipsaw chop,as evidenced on my tick chart,
    not something i want to trade
    with everyone convinced of santa,next weeks europe union failure—ooops meeting will be interesting also with so many bulls coming up to mid month opts ex—-the market makers may have different thoughts

  8. Well, I ran out of patience looking for the opeing gap fill, at minimum, on the downside and I’m out of both short positions at 1247. Seems as those the morning has good directional trend and then, by noon, it gets sloppy.

    1. RichE – You , sir, have more courage than me! Now that the opening gap finally got filled, I’m inclined to think that MON will see an early morning rally attempt before another downside attempt to test 1233-1240.

Leave a Reply