Before the Open (Jun 1)

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board. Taiwan dropped 2.7% and Japan, New Zealand and Singapore dropped around 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Greece is down 3.7%, Germany and Stockholm more than 2%, and Austria, Belgium, France, Norway and Switzerland more than 1%. Prior to the employment numbers, futures here in the States pointed towards a large gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is down almost 3%, copper more than 1%. Gold and silver are down.
Here are the numbers…
unemployment rate: up to 8.2% (from 8.1%)
nonfarm payrolls: up 69K
private payrolls: up 82K
average workweek: 34.4 hours (up 0.1 hours)
hourly earnings: $23.41 (up 2 cents)
These are horrendous numbers, and to make matters worse, the March and April numbers were revised down.
The futures’ reaction was to sell off hard. They went from being down 15 to being down almost 30 in a split second.
Oil is now down > 4%. Gold and silver on the other hand jumped straight up and are now positive.
This is what the market has done the last 10 days. Several up and down moves, several sudden reversals, a handful of gaps and after 10 days the index was mostly unchanged. This is great is you’re a day trader who likes to fade moves, but if you prefer a directional market, the last 10 days have not been fun to play with.

As of now, the S&P is set to open at a new low. Just a couple days ago it was near a 2-week high. Now it’s at a new low. A month ago Obama was writing his acceptance speech for being re-elected President. It’s not a lock any more.
The intermediate term trend has been down for about four weeks. The near term, thanks to up and down movement in the chart above, has been unclear, but this has now changed. I’ve been preaching for a couple weeks to not take big chances, to not place big bets, to conserve capital. Hopefully you listened. The market has been held hostage to whatever news was crossing the wires, and that’s not an environment for technical traders to be very active. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers