The government shutdown has ended and the Sept jobs report will be released Thursday.

PRE-OPEN MARKET COMMENTS MONDAY – Last week the market tested the 50-day MA for a second time in less than two weeks and it made a higher low. It closed above AVWAPQ and it is relatively flat this morning. The good news is that support has been confirmed. The bad news is that it had to be tested twice. A more bullish outcome would have been one brief test and then a new all-time high.

The Fed’s repo facility has been used by banks and that is a warning sign that liquidity is tight. The Federal Reserve had a “side meeting” with 25 primary dealer banks to discuss how they are using it and supposedly to encourage its use. This was during a regularly scheduled event. It could be a sign that liquidity issues are rising, but we don’t know if that has been impacted by the shutdown or the recent subprime lender failures. It is typical to see a small increase into the holiday, but this has been extreme.

Over the weekend, Japan posted its advanced GDP reading and it was -.4%. That was better than feared, but the number was negative. Global growth was stagnant well before the tariffs.

The BLS said that they might not release an October jobs report because of the shutdown. They had collected the data during September and they are going to release that number this Thursday. Employment conditions were softening before the scheduled release. A weak number could spook investors or they could take comfort knowing that it solidifies a December Fed rate cut. The FOMC minutes will be released Wednesday. This morning Empire Manufacturing came in at 18.7 vs 10.7 the prior month and that was a pretty good number.

Warren Buffet disclosed a stake in Google. That’s why the stock has performed well relative to other tech giants. Relative strength is a “tell” that institutions are buying and that is our edge.

NVDA will report this Wednesday and it will impact the market. The stock has barely rallied in the last quarter and we’ll see if another three months of earnings can get it through resistance. This is the big news for the week.

Retailers like TGT, HD and WMT will also report. Given extremely low consumer confidence readings, I feel there is a good chance the numbers will be light and the reactions could be negative heading into the holiday.

Like I mentioned earlier, a more bullish week of price action would have been to hold the gains from the first test of the 50-day MA. The selling we saw last week was brisk and that is less bullish. I am fairly neutral and I want to see us get through the open from last Thursday before I start taking bullish swings. That move needs to happen quickly. If it does, it would be a sign that buyers are still in control. If we can’t recover that red candle in the next few days, it is a sign that the selling pressure is building. The price action the rest of the year is likely to be choppy and the upside is limited as far as I am concerned.

From a day trading standpoint, sellers… take your best shot. Let’s set an early low and see if we get a nice bounce off of AVWAPE and the 50-day MA. Both are almost the same price. If I see that, I will trade from the long side.

Support is the 50-day MA and resistance is the high from Friday.