NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S&P 500 Forecast – US Indices Continue to Wait for NFP

NASDAQ 100 Technical Analysis

The U.S. Indices on Thursday, of course, were closed due to the National Day of Mourning for former president Jimmy Carter. But as we look at the chart, you can see that some CFD trading was done overseas. So, it gives you a little bit of an idea of what was a very quiet session, being very cognizant of support at the 21,000 level.

This is primarily made up of electronic futures trading as well. So, with that being said, it looks like we’re just sitting right here at support waiting for that jobs number on Friday to give us an idea as to what the Federal Reserve may or may not do. It’ll be interesting to see, but I think at this point in time, we have a scenario where we are most likely in somewhat of a buy zone, but we need to get that out of the way first.

Dow Jones 30 Technical Analysis

The Dow Jones 30, of course, has been bumbling along for several weeks now after falling pretty sharply at the end of last year. The 42,000 level continues to be significant support and as long as we can stay above there, I think you’ve got a real shot at the market resuming its uptrend, which is my base case scenario. But I also recognize it has been a laggard, and I think it probably will continue to underperform at this point in time.

S&P 500 Technical Analysis

The S&P 500 of course is right around the 5,900 level in no man’s land. As things stand right now, it looks like we have somewhat of a consolidation range between maybe 5,800 and 6,000, maybe 6,050 as well. So, I think you just have a scenario where you have to be cautiously optimistic, but again, we’ve got to get this jobs number out of the way.

And if it’s not too horrifically strong or too horrifically weak, I think ultimately traders will come back and start buying stocks as a lot of money managers probably have been waiting for the non-farm payroll numbers to get out of the way in order to start investing for the new year.

For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar.