Do we like good jobs numbers? Yes...but only when all the Fed members are telling us that they are very flexible on the rate hike plot and perhaps even the balance sheet runoff schedule. What coordination. What finesse! I hope if you're long anything related to this stuff that you reap some rewards next week...there are weekend meetings going on about the government funding thing -- they are putting on a good face at the press conferences but contradicting each other at the same time.
US Indices on Friday's close: SPX: (+3.43%), NDX: (+4.48%), Dow: (+3.29%) and RUT: (+3.75%)
Today's ES profile looks fairly populated relative to some recent thin days. 2535 is the point of contention. 2570 is the next peak volume point of control and is in line with SPX 2565.38 -- the 50% retracement of the 3 December downtrend. ES traded 515k contracts by the end of the initial balance and 1.85M by the close. The contract waffled on the NFP release and then climbed higher, building bases of volume at 2515 and 2528 before topping out at 2539.25 before falling a bit to close at 2530.75.
NYSE A-D Lines: +2445. NYSE breadth: 23.25:1 and NASD breadth: 14.96:1. NYSE MOC: +225M to buy. NYSE intraday TICK opened around +1517 and cumulative TICK trended higher. SPX TICK looking ok. SPX volume: 2.64B and NYSE total volume: +15.28% relative to yesterday's value.
The employment report for December was much better than expected at 312k while unemployment went from 3.7% to 3.9% and average hourly earnings went to +0.4% m/m. There were also upward revisions for previous months' data.
CLG19 light crude settled at 48.03 (+1.8%) and is (+2.59%) in electronic session. ZNH19 treasury futures,( -0.80%) as of this note, dumped a bit on the NFP release and struggled more during dovish comments from Fed speakers. USD/JPY (+0.73%) and AUD/JPY (+2.31%) have stabilized well.
Straddling the 61.8% retrace toward the April highs, GCG19 February gold fell to its 10 day moving average but bounced to near its 5 day to settle to settle at US 1285.60 (-0.7%) . Gold was helped out a bit when the USD fell back to the 100 day average on dovish interviews and speeches from FOMC members. Now if everyone can just behave themselves over the weekend.
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