It is that time of the month, Friday we get the always anticipated Jobs Report
An unexpected drop in jobless-claims helped out the market in the early going. However, when same store sales figures disappointed sellers took to the market sending stocks to their lows of the session. Volume did not swell as institutions were mainly on the sidelines waiting for tomorrow’s jobs report. Traders were able to push the market off its lows and close above the mid-point of the day. Gold was the real story of the day as central banks across the globe committed to ceasing debasement of their currencies. Gold finished lower on the day after a fabulous run. Today was simply a day of rest as the market awaits tomorrow’s non-farm payroll employment figures.
Yesterday’s market we saw a big leadership group, cloud computing stocks get taken to the woodshed. Many tried and did somewhat recover from yesterday’s losses. The sting from Wednesday’s selling is still fresh and it will take these stocks moving into new bases to work off the heavy volume selling. We do have a few leading stocks approaching proper pivot buys, but the crushing blow other leading stocks have taken it leaves doubt we’ll see continued strength out of the market.
A positive sign is the market is able to hang onto its 10 day moving average and found support at it today. This market needs to get some serious juice to move higher. Tomorrow’s action will certainly be a signal to how this market will react going forward.
More good news came after the market close with Alcoa’s (ticker: AA) earnings release where the firm beat both on the revenue and earnings side. In July, AA kicked off the earnings season with a similar report only to see the market race higher into the month of August. We are in a different place than in July, but continued to positive news from earnings would certainly strengthen the case for stocks.
Distribution has yet to pile up on the market even with market leaders getting hit. It is something to look out for over the days and weeks to come. If we cannot manage a rebound by closing above last week’s high it would be a bit of disappointment. What we do want to avoid is having volume run higher than last week and closing near the lows of the week. We have been sloshing around these levels for the second week in a row and it’d be nice to avoid churning and punch higher.
Always cut your losses and enjoy the upcoming weekend.
