August 8, 2024

Markets:

Stock market futures dipped on Wednesday evening as Wall Street sought to stabilize following several dramatic swings in recent days.

The move in futures comes after stocks were unable to hold an early rally on Wednesday, fueling concerns that the factors that caused Monday's sell-off haven't gone away. The S&P 500 fell 0.77% and the Nasdaq Composite sank 1.05%. The 30-stock Dow shed about 234 points, or 0.60%. All three averages have now declined in four of the past five sessions.

Investors will get a fresh look at the U.S. labor market on Thursday, when jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 3 will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are expecting a reading of 240,000 initial jobless claims. That would be a decrease from the 249,000 claims in the prior week.

Portfolio:

We enter the new session holding setups in NU, SOXL, and TSLL. Numbers were pretty spot on yesterday with our trend lines on S&P at 5320 area. Chop fest down to 5240 area. Now looking for a stick save or break below. Overnight already showed some buying but clearly algo's. We expected seasonal ranges to come in around Sep as we stated a few weeks ago. Chop / down into elections before they ramp it for months to come again to new highs. The question now is if they started this earlier. Historically, since 1976, the play has been a 8 to 10% downturn around Sep/Oct into an election before they run it with force afterwards, a monster move higher. They have taken the markets recently off pattern; example would be sell in May theory. That was completely blown out the water by a monster rally in May this year. Just thinking this through now and wandering if they reverse this as well. Here's the 10% or so lower move and run it higher earlier than November starting time frame. This is why our trend lines are so important. Should we break below we could see 5k fast on S&P, possibly slightly below, before it ramps higher. In fact, like we stated last summer, they will run this to new highs at some point over the next several months. Would be shocked if not in by early 2025.

The true short-term trend will reveal itself. In current area just chop and then we can proceed. We are moving into longer dated options right now so we have time / value. Be on high alert today but we expect the better session to actually come tomorrow – Friday – as we see positioning occurring into weekend holds and for next week. Curious to see what they do with the VIX and if any replays of last weeks activity.

Right now stay patient.  Please do not overtrade here.  Once the true trend emerges your greatest opportunities are presented to you.  This will be the time to jump all over the trades and the greatest returns are made.   Right now in chop area, do not want to see anyone get caught in daily swings here.  The trend line will break one way or another very soon here and thats where our service is the most explosive.  We've shown this for over 20 years now!