U.S / China 90 Day Tariff Truce

Index Futures Net Changes and Settlements:

Foreign Markets, Fair Value and Volume:

• In Asia 11 out of 11 markets closed higher: Shanghai Comp +2.57%, Hang Seng +2.55%, Nikkei +1.00%
• In Europe 13 out of 13 markets are trading higher: CAC +1.01%, DAX +2.21%, FTSE +1.66%
• Fair Value: S&P +0.53, NASDAQ +3.78, Dow +16.16
• Total Volume: 1.47mil ESZ & 566 SPZ traded in the pit

_{As of 8:00 AM EST}

Today’s Economic Calendar:

Today’s economic calendar includes John Williams Speaks 9:15 AM ET, PMI Manufacturing Index 9:45 AM ET, ISM Mfg Index 10:00 AM ET, Construction Spending 10:00 AM ET, Lael Brainard Speaks 10:30 AM ET, and Robert Kaplan Speaks 1:00 PM ET.

Chart courtesy of @Chicagostock – $ES_F 2860s not too far away now. Next stops > Nov high.

S&P 500 Futures: U.S / China Global Market Teeter Totter

The S&P 500 futures traded down to 2729.00 on Globex early Friday morning, and traded 2736.75 on the 8:30 futures open, down -7.50 handles. The first move after the bell was a break down to 2733.25, followed by a rally up to 2748.50, just 6 handles shy of Thursdays 2754.50 high. After the high the ES sold off and made a higher low at 2735.75, and then rallied up to a lower high at 2745.50. From there, the futures sold back off down to another higher low at 2737.25, and then shot up to 2752.00 after a headline hit the tape that the U.S. and China were ‘reaching points of consensus’, though some areas of disagreement remain.

At 2:03 CT the MiM opened up showing $948 million to buy, and the ES was trading 2751.50 with 926,000 contracts traded. As the MiM increased to $1.42 billion to buy, the ES broke out above the highs and traded up to 2759.25. At 2:45 the benchmark futures traded 2755.50 as the final MiM showed $1.6 billion to buy. On the 3:00 cash close the ES traded 2757.00, and then traded up to a new high at 2664.75 at 3:13, then went on to settle at 2764.25 on the 3:15 futures close, up +22.25 handles, or +0.81% on the day.

In the end it was clearly about the China tariff headlines. Prior to the headline there was only 640,000 ES contracts traded, 45 minutes later it was 1 million. In terms of the days overall tone, it acted good, but I just have lingering doubts about the Trump / Xi tariff meeting. In terms of the days overall trade, 1.39 million ES traded, the lowest volume in almost two months.

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