The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 indices see all-time highs today, but crude oil is the big outperformer. Consumer Confidence came in elevated, at the highest level since December 2021.
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Good afternoon, traders. It’s Chris Chavez with Blue Line Futures and it’s your daily midday market minute. The S&P and the Dow Jones hit a new high and crude oil is outperforming risk assets here today. But before we get to it, if you’re watching this video like it, subscribe if you go to our website, there’s also a link to direct you to YouTube. You can subscribe that way. We would love for you to follow us. We would love for you to help us build our following. Yeah, the S&P and the Dow Jones hit a new all time high today. Now, the S&P is just slightly off of those highs, just about unchanged. The Dow Jones leading stock indices higher here. And crude oil, the big outperformer amongst risk assets, you know, looking at precious metals and stock indices in positive territory, up slightly over one and a half percent as of this video now. Really, the question is, why is crude oil outperforming here today? We got some consumer confidence numbers and they did come in at the highest level seen since December of 2021. We got a print of 114.8 versus estimates of 115. So even though those came in slightly below estimates, this is still an elevated level of consumer confidence, one that we haven’t seen in quite some time. So, you know, consumers are feeling more confident. And as consumers feel more confident, you know, they typically associate inflation and the lack of confidence with higher gasoline prices. So, you know, you could probably expect that demand for transportation and travel would be a bit more it would be ramped up. And I think that’s why you’re seeing the crude markets respond to that today. Also, JOLTS job openings came in above estimates, 9.02 million jobs versus 8.75 million expected. Now, that is upbeat and it’s positive to see that there are more job openings. However, when you compare this number year over year to job openings this time last January, you know, we’re still 2 million jobs under where we were this time last year. So there’s not as many openings. And I think the big headwind is definitely going to be layoffs. UPS today announced that they are going to be laying off about 12,000 workers. You’ve seen some big tech companies come out with other layoffs as well. If you really do start to see, you know, less payrolls added non-farm is coming out this week. We get ADP, ADP nonfarm tomorrow, non-farm later this week. I think that is a weakness that the markets potentially don’t want to see, especially with the repricing in economic growth that would puts, you know, interest rate cuts back on the table. And when you’re looking at the March meeting right now, odds of a march cut after the release of this data today have been crushed. Now 38 to 39% chance of a cut in March. That’s down from a coin toss of 5050. So, you know, you’re really seeing things being priced back in as a positive, positive consumer confidence, consumer and stronger labor market. With some of this JOLTS data. But again, the headwinds will definitely be layoffs and nonfarm payrolls. We’ll get the unemployment rate later this week tomorrow. Again, ADP nonfarm employment cost index, we’ll get some crude oil inventories numbers and the Fed’s interest rate decision. And Jerome Powell’s press conference. So really important stuff to pay attention to some of the support and resistance levels. Three star resistance for the S&P for the U.S. E-Mini futures is going to be 4981 to 5000. That’s psychologically significant barrier there to start support for the Nasdaq underperforming here today, seeing a little bit of profit being taken out of tech 17 six, 15 to 17, 17, six, 29 crude oil, three star resistance I want to see is break in close above 7801 to 7821 and silver slightly off of the intraday highs today finding a little bit of support intraday. I want to see us maintain a three star support level of 2281 to 2287. That would add a bit m ore conviction heading into this jobs data and the fed’s interest rate decision tomorrow. If you have any questions, reach out to our trade desk. We’re here for you. Remember, futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.
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