Technical Analysis: Now It’s Up To The Jobs Report

The consensus is unusually bullish heading into tomorrow morning’s jobs report, which leaves room for disappointment – or to sell on the news. Expectations are for jobs growth of 120,000 and wage growth of 0.2%, and given how little job growth there has been, an in-line report could be enough. The bigger problem remains that it will take sustained job growth of 150,000 a month or more, plus stronger wage gains, to sustain the economy, but that may not become an issue for the market for a few months yet. The technical set-up heading into tomorrow’s report is a positive one, with higher highs on all the indexes. The one negative is that they’re all short-term overbought, but that hasn’t been much of an issue for the market for the last year or so. At .47, the equity put-call ratio is a little complacent. The Nasdaq (first chart below) took out its downtrend line today, one more piece of evidence that the bottom may have been seen for now. 2020 and 2030-2034 are resistance, and support is 2010, 1996-2000, 1991 and 1985. The S&P (second chart) faces resistance at 1133-1136, 1140 and 1147, and support is 1126, 1120 and 1110-1115. The Dow (third chart) has resistance at 10,420, 10,460 and 10,530, and support is 10,300-10,330, 10,250 and 10,180.