The S&P 500 futures (ESM17:CME) closed firm on Wednesday, then pulled back slightly on the overnight Globex session, before trading back up to the 2414.50 level. The ES opened the day session at the 2415.75, sold off down to the 2412.75 level, and then rallied up to 2417.50 at 9:00 CT. After the high was made, the ES ‘slowly’ sold off back down to, and just below, the vwap at 2412.00. From there, the futures rallied a few handles, then sold off a few handles, and at 10:00 got hit by a buy program that pushed the ES all the way up to a new all time contract high of 2421.75 at 11:48. Over the next two hours the ES pressed all the way up to 2426.50. It was all buy stops, and buy programs.
One of the things the PitBull taught me was to look at the half hours, and if you go back and do a time and sales from the beginning of the day, you will see what time the buy programs came in at, 9:00 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, or on the half hours. It’s how the programs work.
Just after 2:00pm cst, the MiM started showing $100 to $130 million to sell. The ES pulled back exactly 2 handles and then started going back up. Just before the 2:45 cash imbalance came out, the MiM was showing $285 million to sell, and then in came a MiM flip of over $200 million to buy. By 3:05 the ES made another new all-time contract high at 2430.50.
In the end, the buy stops, algos and S&P cash buyers did a fine job of helping push the S&P to new all time contract highs. Also helping to make this possible was the lack of volume. Wednesdays volume was 1.7 million contracts, and yesterdays ‘thin to win’ volume was only 1.4 million. On the day, the (ESM17:CME) closed up 18.25 handles, or +0.76%. The Dow Jones futures (YMM17:CBT) closed up 129 points, or +0.61%, and the Nasdaq 100 futures closed up 28 points, or +0.48%.
While You Were Sleeping
Overnight, Asian markets traded strong and closed higher across the board. The strength in Asia followed through into the European open, with all markets trading higher there also. In the U.S., the S&P 500 futures (ESZ15:CME) continued to charge higher on the optimism of this mornings jobs report, and printed a new all time high of 2437.25 at 6:00am cst. The ES opened the globex session at 2429.50 and never looked back. As of 6:35 am cst, the last print in the ESM is 2435.00, up 5.5 handles, with 160k contracts traded.
In Asia, 11 out of 11 markets closed higher (Shanghai +0.11%), and in Europe 12 out of 12 markets are trading higher this morning (FTSE +0.44%). Today’s economic calendar includes the Employment Situation, International Trade, Patrick Harker Speaks, the Baker-Hughes Rig Count, and Robert Kaplan Speaks.
Our View
Recruiters wait at a booth at a military veterans’ job fair in Carson, California October 3, 2014. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
All I gotta say is… WOW! They talk about how bad things are in the U.S., but it’s sure not showing up in the stock market. Today is the May jobs report, and according to Bloomberg, the non-farm payroll number is 185,000, with a range of 140,000 to 231,000. The ES has gone a long way, but that doesn’t mean it can’t keep going. Ideally, we want to see what the number is before giving out a view, but if the volume is low again, you can bet the mutual funds will have more money to put to work. You can take if from there…
PitBull: CLN osc -19/9 turns up on a close above 5021, ESM osc 30/6 turns down on a close below 2434.73, VIX osc -10/0 turns down on a close below 826.
Market Vitals for Friday 06-02-2017
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As always, please use protective buy and sell stops when trading futures and options.
- In Asia 11 out of 11 markets closed higher: Shanghai Comp +0.11%, Hang Seng +0.44%, Nikkei +1.60%
- In Europe 12 out of 12 markets are trading higher: CAC +0.98%, DAX +1.66%, FTSE +0.44%
- Fair Value: S&P -0.63, NASDAQ +1.23, Dow -4.38
- Total Volume: 1.4mil ESM and 1.5k SPM traded
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