Jobs Report And Presidents Rage Posts Worry Investors As Stocks, Gold And Bitcoin Drop

This week's trades, market movers, and technical levels that count, wrapped up with clarity and precision. This is Weekly Wrap-Up with Verified Investing. Hey everybody, welcome to this Friday edition of the Weekly Wrap-Up. My name is Gareth Soloway, Chief Market Strategist here at VerifiedInvesting.com. So the market started the day here, and this was interesting folks. We started the day with the non-farm payrolls number. Now the non-farm payrolls number came in surprisingly strong. Let's take a look at that data point right here. 162,000 jobs gained. That beat estimates by 109,000 jobs. In addition, instead of revising the previous months down, we actually saw revisions to the upside. So all of this, you'd say, oh, this is great for the markets, right? This is great. It's showing strength in the economy. It actually caused a sell-off. Why? Because the stronger the economy, the more likely the Fed has to raise rates at their September 16th meeting. So that's the essence of it. Anything that's going to put pressure to the upside on rates is going to ultimately cause the markets to sell off. It also causes gold and silver and Bitcoin to sell off in the near term. So that's where we are right now. Again, jobs data strong. That did create a sell-off in the market with the S&P 500 dropping about four-tenths of 1%. Now, I still remain bullish on the S&P 500 because we remain on a technical basis above a key threshold, which again signals neutral to upside bias for the coming weeks in the market. All right. Now, there was one other thing that kind of was a little concerning to markets today, and that was a rage tweet or rage truth social post by the president demanding that the Federal Reserve lower rates at their next meeting, threatening to cancel trade contracts with any country where we don't have a surplus in the deal. All right. So essentially, the president putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower rates. And again, get this straight. It's not about whether or not rates are held sideways with no hike. He actually is pushing for a rate cut. Now, to me, this is probably a negotiating tactic. He's putting pressure to cut rates, hoping that the Fed will at least keep rates neutral and not hike them in the September meeting. But nonetheless, it did unnerve the markets today. I think in general, you know, anytime you have a tax on the Federal Reserve while they're trying to manage inflation and obviously what else is going on in the economy, it does make investors a little bit wary, essentially considering we have all the debt issues and everything else out there via the U.S. government. All right. So that's where we are right now, folks. As we continue, let's take a look at the S&P 500 jumping into the S&P 500. Notice again, we pulled back today by about four tenths of a percent, not a big drop, but nonetheless going into a three day weekend, a little bit of downside action that comes on the back of a solid multi-day push to the upside on the S&P 500. Remember, this is my trend line. As long as we stay above this, I remain bullish on the S&P 500. And if we did break this white trend line, which is around 75, 70 or so on the S&P, then I would move to a neutral stance on the market. This is the neutral zone right here. If we break below here, that's where I would expect a much bigger sell off in the markets to the downside. All right. So keeping an eye on that, I will keep you guys posted. But right now we're solidly above the bullish trend line, which remains to me to be net bullish on the markets into next week. The dollar today did pull back slightly, not or excuse me, got to bounce slightly today. Overall, we had two massive downside moves and then obviously any threat of the Fed raising rates or any upping of probabilities of the Fed raising rates is going to put pressure on the dollar to the upside. But really, it was a minimal bounce. And I would strongly encourage investors out there watching to understand the bigger macro pattern here. The bigger macro pattern, you have a trend line here and we did absolutely break to the downside. We retraced. And now, again, as long as we remain below this trend line, the pressure to the downside on the dollar is the main focus. And I would say that bounces on the dollar, you should expect in general for the dollar to go lower. And that generally implies that the Fed may do nothing in their next meeting. And I think that's the key here, folks. I know the Fed is jawboning about being hawkish. And, you know, every time Kevin Warsh comes out, he speaks hawkishly. But I almost wonder if he's doing that to make the markets kind of anticipate and have the markets essentially do the work for the Federal Reserve, because he's walking this tight line, this tightrope. Essentially, he knows the president appointed someone who the president said should not raise rates and should, in fact, lower rates. But then he also has these issues of inflation and other factors to deal with. And so he's talking a tough game, but we have yet to see him act on it. And I would not be surprised if the Fed just ends up staying pat, no raise at the September 16th meeting. Now, the big factor to watch next week, and this is the one that's going to matter. It's either going to ice a rate hike, meaning we're going to get one in September or we're not. And that is the CPI and PPI data. Those are both the inflation numbers, consumer price index, producer price index. Those will be reported next week. If those are somewhat tame, it opens the door for the Fed to not hike rates. And obviously, again, the president pushing for a rate cut, that's not going to happen. The Fed would lose all credibility if they went that way. But if the pressure is put on from the president and the Fed has an opening to do nothing, I would certainly expect the Fed to do just that. All right. So, again, just my two cents on what we see going on. Let's take a look at the 10-year yield. The 10-year yield still remains below this threshold right here. We'll keep an eye on this. Again, as long as we stay below this double top or at this double top, the anticipation would be, based on technical analysis, that we should assume a pullback in yields is likely. That would also go towards a more muted inflation number next week and potentially no hike by the Fed at their September 16th meeting. OK, big movers today, Tesla reversing yesterday's move up. Basically what happened here. So yesterday, Elon was out talking a great game about everything that's amazing going on with SpaceX and Tesla. But then today, the regulatory body that oversees robo taxis came out and said these robo taxis by Tesla may not work well or they may not pass regulatory thresholds because they don't have a steering wheel. All right. So, again, whether you endorse that or not, it doesn't really matter. It did put pressure on Tesla stock today, which had had a great run to the upside yesterday, but reversed a majority of that move. In fact, all of that move and then some today. And you can see again, this was yesterday. Great pop yesterday, but today right back down and coming back in. Now, Tesla is still short term in an uptrend, but nonetheless, we are in this bigger parallel channel. And again, like I told you guys in the game plan, any sort of move down here, I buy Tesla, any sort of move into here, I short it. Why? Well, simply because that's what the chart has told us to do. Every time we've come to the downside, it's been a great mover to the upside. When we hit the upside, it's been a great short to the downside, buy it there, sell it there, pull back, sell it again, sell it again all the way down and right there. And so I strongly encourage us as investors to use the data to our advantage. Right. So, you know, if this is what it shows and listen, it's not to say that it can't at some point break above the line or below, but that's what stops are for. Right. That's why you have a tight stop. And if it breaks it, you stop out, take the small loss. But look at the size of these gains that Tesla has given if we played these trend lines, both as a buy and a shortable opportunity. It's a incredible range bound trading on Tesla. All right. Next up, Apple falling today has had a good move up. I was hoping Apple would fill this gap because I was ready to do a swing short on it. Never got there with a nice little dip today. And again, granted, we are in this kind of light volume atmosphere. So be more interesting next week when the big institutional money comes back from the Hamptons and they're relaxing for the three day weekend. Generally, they take August off in the Hamptons and then they come back to work and the institutional volume comes back to the market in September. So that's what I'm looking forward to. I look for that as a indicator of really where the markets are going to go. And I'll be watching next week if we continue to see a rally or if we continue to see some downside action. Gold today, a little bit of a pullback on the back of higher yields. Again, that's just the nature of what's been going on on a technical basis. Again, gold hit resistance here at just under six forty seven hundred, then fell to technical support and then got a bounce at this point. Like I said in the game plan this morning, there is no good indicator. We're kind of in no man's land here. So I do not have a short or long on a swing trade basis on gold. Same thing with silver. We hit resistance. We pulled back to technical support right here. You can see, again, beautiful little support line with this underbelly here. In fact, you can stretch it out and look, it actually goes. In fact, it keeps going all the way over here, this low. Then we broke below. Then it became resistance, rejected price. Then we broke back above and it became support again. And again, that tells us this is a very pivotal bias trend line. In other words, above it, you generally give it the benefit of the doubt. But if it breaks below, it could dump very sharply all the way back down towards that yellow trend line. All right. Oil today, flattish to negative. Really, again, early in the day, oil was down much, much more. But as we crept towards this three day weekend where there's the worry that things could escalate and the markets will be closed, the oil trade will be closed until basically until Monday night. Right. Maybe Sunday. But really, most of us will be again starting on Tuesday. The idea here is that people were very cautious. People didn't want to go in short on oil into the weekend, the long weekend at that. And really, you had some buying assuming there would be something escalatory in the oil price. Now, I'm actually in the camp that oil is likely going to go down here in the near term. The idea here is we hit short term resistance and now we need to retrace to this trend line. So let's watch next week if we get a pullback into this eighty three to eighty four dollar per barrel level. Natural gas remains above its pivot line. So I remain bullish on this, though it did have a small gain today. Yesterday pulled back on inventories, but I would continue to expect an upward trajectory on natural gas, especially as we head into the cooler months of the year and seasonality starts to take hold. Bitcoin taking a look here at Bitcoin. We have a little bit of a pullback today. Bitcoin remains strongly into resistance right here. All right. So again, you have the yellow zone as well as the white ascending trend line. And again, right off of that. Now, I will say something about Bitcoin. It is staying strong. So even though you had a pullback today, the move yesterday was tremendous. If it can break above eighty two thousand, this likely has 90 plus thousand written all over it. So I'm watching it like a hawk here. I wouldn't call myself an all out bull at this point. In fact, I'm still a skeptic until we break this level, just like with any of these other charts. We have to respect the level until proven otherwise. But nonetheless, I am impressed that we had a few pullback days earlier this week and then that big surge yesterday showed relative strength. A lot of buyers came in, even in spite of the pullback today, it's still hovering right underneath that level. Now, we talked about what to look forward to next week. CPI, PPI data that will be the determining factor and likely the driving force behind where the markets go based on rate cut or I shouldn't say cut rate stationary or, you know, raising rates when the Federal Reserve meets a couple of weeks from now. The other thing to watch going into next week that will be pivotal is where does oil go? If oil continues to push, let's say north of ninety to a hundred dollars a barrel. There's no doubt that that will not only put pressure on rates to the upside, but also stress out a consumer that continues to be in struggle mode. So watch oil and rates next week. CPI is of the utmost importance, and I believe that's on Wednesday morning. We'll get that data out. Lastly, I want to mention, folks, this video, this weekly wrap up is sponsored by Rumble and the Rumble wallet. They are awesome, folks. I can't stress that enough how Rumble and I'm bringing it up on my phone because I have the app right here on my phone. But Rumble, basically, I buy and sell my crypto right here. I buy and sell gold on the swing trade basis because it's gold based in tether. And again, so easy backed by a multi billion dollar publicly traded company, the Rumble wallet. So I would encourage you check it out. If you use the code verified five, they'll put five dollars in stable coins right in your wallet to start out. So use that code. And again, you can use credit card, debit card, bank account, all that stuff to fund it if you want to start buying crypto or even tether based gold in there. All right. On that note, I'm going to bid you farewell. Go have a wonderful three day weekend. I'll be back on Tuesday with the game plan at nine a.m. Eastern time. Have a great one, guys. Talk to you soon. Take care.