Hey team. U.S. stock futures edged lower as technology stocks faced pressure from a series of disappointing earnings reports and renewed concerns over advancements in AI from China.
Let’s re-cap the prior session and see what’s next!
Impact Snapshot
🟥 Unemployment Claims - 8:30am
Macro Viewpoint
In early trading on Thursday, U.S. stock index futures fell as market sentiment was dampened by ongoing concerns over a global trade war.
The uncertainty surrounding tariffs has led to cautious consumer spending and hesitancy among corporate executives regarding investment decisions. This has fueled fears of a potential economic slowdown, particularly as inflation remains high.
Amid these concerns, U.S. stocks have experienced heightened volatility in recent trading sessions.
Investors are awaiting a weekly jobless claims report set to be released before markets open, though the more significant focus remains on Friday’s payroll data, which will provide key insights into the state of the economy.
Absorption
Institutional traders are very quiet about what they do. They don’t wish to destroy the market by aggressively selling off their positions. Instead, they prefer to place orders to absorb the buying aggression (in this case) and have the market completely stall, leading to a pullback.
This activity also took place during today’s overnight session at around 2:00 AM ET. When you see the green delta—indicating buyers trying to push the market higher—but the price isn’t moving, that’s a sign that a serious seller is positioned at this reference point, in this case, the 5850 level, absorbing all the buying.
This has led to a 70+ point drop during the overnight session.