Opening Market Commentary For 08-02-2013
Premarkets were up +0.30% until the lousy financials at 8:30 this morning and the SP500 futures dropped -0.80 within seconds to 1698. By 8:50 it had dropped 0.22% confusing investors on what to do next.
When the markets opened up the BTFDers were out in force and for once I agreed with them in that this might be a temporary decline.
By 10 am the markets were well on their way to recovering from the morning opening lows. Volume started to fall as time marched on indicating we may have a down day but not a waterfall.
The indicators (and gaps) show that we have more up to go and today’s poor numbers is only a side show.
The reports were poor all around. The dropping of the Participation Rates is responsible for part of decline in the Unemployment Rate. Also, Personal Income/Spending missed expectations by most in a year.
Payrolls Miss 162K vs 185K Expected, June Revised Lower To 188K; Unemployment Rate 7.4%
So much for the trends of beats: July nonfarm payrolls +162K missing expectations of 185K; June was revised lower to 188K and the unemployment rate dips from 7.5% to 7.4%.
The rate dropped because the civilian labor force declined from 155,835 to 155,798 or 37K, driven by an increase of people not in labor force to 89,957 – just shy of the all time high.
This also means that the labor force participation rate once again ticked down to 63.4% from 63.5%. What is worse however is that the change in average hourly earnings dropped -0.1% on expectations of a 0.2% increase and down from the 0.4% increase last month.
Those part-time jobs are finally starting to bite.
The DOW at 10:15 is at 15591 down 37 or -0.23%.
The SP500 is at 1704 down 3 or -0.17%.
SPY is at 170.37 down 0.30 or -0.18%.
The $RUT is at 1058 down 2 or -0.19%.
NASDAQ is at 3673 down 3 or -0.08%.
NASDAQ 100 is at 3126 down 0.32 or -0.01%.
The longer trend is up, the past months trend is bullish, the past 5 sessions have been bullish and the current bias is positive.
Oil, gold and USD prices not available because of computer issues this morning. We will update post as soon as the figures are available.
To contact me with questions, comments or constructive criticism is always encouraged and appreciated:
Written by Gary
