Daily Commentary: October 25, 2023

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Watch For A Market Catalyst

Posted by Peter Stolcers on October 25
www.oneoption.com

Lots of news coming in the next week. We need to see long green candles and heavy volume. That is a sign that buyers are interested.

PRE-OPEN MARKET COMMENTS WEDNESDAY – The market has been able to hold the 200-day MA. The news calendar in the week ahead is “busy” and we are likely to have a catalyst. I am looking for a market bounce.

GOOG and MSFT reported after the close yesterday. GOOG was down and MSFT was up so they balanced each other out. META will report after the close today and AMZN will report after the close Thursday. Valuations for tech stocks are “rich” by historic measures so the news has to be excellent for the stock to move higher.

Tomorrow,Q3 GDP will be released and Friday the PCE deflator will be released. Since this is the first reading, the numbers will be important. Remember, this is a backwards looking number.

Flash PMIs in Europe were weak and both services and manufacturing levels are in contraction territory (47.8 and 43.0 respectively). China is pumping in more liquidity through the PBOC. Capital outflows have not been this high since 2016. S&P believes that China’s growth could fall below 3% in 2024.

Next week the FOMC statement will be released. Powell’s comments have been hawkish and the market is pricing in a pause (97% odds of no rate hike). The chance of a December rate hike has fallen to 30% and the notion is that the market has done the Fed’s work for them. Bonds have declined and that has already pushed rates higher.

For bulls (me) the overnight reaction was not what we wanted. Earnings needed to spark buying so that shorts feel some pain. Without that “pop”, shorts will be embolden now that two of the tech giants have reported. I am expecting another choppy day where the market rallies above and below the 200-day MA. Buyers and sellers are paired off and we should see nice movement both ways.  

I want to see this gap down gobbled up by buyers with nice long stacked green candles on heavy volume and I want the gap filled in the first 30 minutes. This would be a sign of aggressive buying. Unfortunately, this scenario is very unlikely. The price action the last week has been soft and we have not seen signs of aggressive buying. Overseas markets were marginally higher, but not enough to have a major impact. We could be in “wait and see” mode again today. If META, GDP and AMZN can’t move the needle, we will be in a holding pattern until the FOMC statement (Nov 1) and AAPL (Nov 2). Stay flexible. The range is SPY $420 – $425. We are going to see more and more earnings releases and they will provide us with plenty of action. If you can find strong/weak stocks with major technical breakouts and heavy volume, focus on them. You only need a couple of these on each side.   

Support is the low from Monday and the 200-day MA. Resistance is at the high from yesterday ($423.82) and AVWAPQ.

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