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The Market Is Taking Body Blows
www.oneoption.com
It’s going to take a while before we see a knockout punch.
PRE-OPEN MARKET COMMENTS – Bull markets die hard. This will be blatantly obvious to you when you look at a 100-year chart of the S&P 500. Most of the time the market is moving higher. Buyers have been conditioned to buy dips and they will continue to do that until it stops working.
The market is not going to roll over until we see a series of weak economic data points. A single “bad” jobs report is NOT going to do it. In 2022 the market waited patiently for “the recession” that never came. Fed rate hikes didn’t result in an economic slowdown and eventually buyers fueled a massive rally to a new all-time high. When the first wave of weak jobs reports surface, the Fed will cut rates and they will save the day. When that monetary easing fails to produce economic growth, the market will decline. The government printed trillions of dollars during Covid-19 and that stimulus kept the economy afloat.
This morning ADP reported 183K new jobs in the private sector in January (146K expected). That is a strong number and it bodes well for Friday’s jobs report. It doesn’t seem like we are going to get a knock out punch on Friday. After the open, ISM Services will be released. That is a survey and it is current. The service sector accounts for 80% of our economic activity.
This morning there was another body blow. Mortgage applications are 39% lower than they were in February 2019 and home sales are running at a near-30-year low. The supply of homes for sale rose 25%, compared with a year ago. There are many jobs tied to the housing sector and this is eventually going to impact jobs.
Many companies are trying to avoid lay-offs (Nissan, Texas Instruments and ST Microelectronics) so they are cutting shifts and offering “early retirement” packages. This won’t bear out in the jobs report and it will make employment look better than it actually is.
Most of the world is in a recession or very close to it. Developed nations have been cutting interest rates and economic activity continues to decelerate.
From a trading standpoint, we’re stuck. The market won’t go up or down and we are stuck in a trading range. Trump’s policies and rhetoric will produce volatility within the range so it is difficult to swing trade. I still suggest being in cash. We had a window of opportunity during the last two weeks for the market to breakout and it didn’t happen. The FOMC, mega cap tech earnings and economic releases did not move the needle.
From a day trading perspective, I like fading the first move of the day if it is wimpy. Mixed overlapping candles on light volume are a sign of weak trend strength. The programs will try one side and when that momentum wanes, they will try the other side. This morning the downside will be tested first. If the market tests the 50-day MA in a wimpy fashion, wait for support. That will be a good entry point for longs. My mindset is not to chase and not to expect big directional moves during the day. We don’t have the news and neither side is dominant. This is a gigantic waiting game. I am market neutral and I am just looking for one or two good trades a day.
Support and resistance are yesterday’s range and we need to clear that range in the first hour to have any shot at decent trading conditions.
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