Wednesday's Close
E-mini S&P 500 Futures (June): Settled at 4206.25, up 7.75
E-mini Nasdaq-100 Futures (June): Settled at 13,673.75, up 25.00
After struggling at resistance all week, U.S. benchmarks are now pointing lower and working their way through supports ahead of the bell. This is no surprise: despite exuding a bullish tone, we’ve warned that an inability to hold higher prices will encourage a probing lower.
Now, we don’t believe there’s a reason to break either way ahead of tomorrow’s pivotal jobs report, but we can’t overlook such a possibility given the tightened technical range and mounting gamma exposure. This is especially true given the lack of news flow; it often becomes periods of “boring” news flow that create a range break. Of course, the media then attributes the day’s trending topics as a cause, but we all know it’s much simpler: the market’s profile, as always, is making sure to disturb the greatest number of participants.
Although tomorrow’s Nonfarm Payroll report is the top focus this week, today’s economic calendar is nothing to snooze on. The private ADP survey came in much higher than expected at 978,000 versus 650,000. This does give us the first look at May jobs, but last month proved to be drastically different from the official read.
Weekly Jobless Claims came due at 7:30 a.m. CT and Initial Claims are expected to trend lower for the 5th week and break below 400,000 for the first time since last March.
Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs will accompany claims data. Final May Services PMI will be released at 8:45 a.m. CT and is followed by the more closely watched ISM Non-Manufacturing at 9:00 a.m. CT.
Also, Crude Oil is trading at the highest levels since October 2018 and is closing in on the psychological $70 mark. Weekly EIA inventory data is out at 10:00 a.m. CT.
This deluge of economic data is even more critical ahead of this afternoon’s Fed speak. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks at 11:20 a.m. CT, a 2021 voter. Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker talks at 12:50 p.m. CT and grabbed headlines yesterday by essentially saying the Fed should begin talking about a timeline to taper. He isn’t a voter until 2023. Fed Governor Randal Quarles then speaks at 2:05 p.m. CT.
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