Stocks Rally Back Despite Rising Rates And Stronger U.S. Dollar

 | Oct 06, 2022 09:12

Sort of a strange day, with markets moving lower to start the day as rates and the dollar increased. The better-than-expected ISM data added to the downturn. Then after the European market close, the dollar started to give back, and the S&P 500 moved off the lows and finished down just 20 bps, despite being down more than 1.6%.

From a technical standpoint, nothing much changed when the S&P 500 gapped lower and filled the gap. The jobs data on Friday is going to decide the next leg of the market, and after reviewing the ISM data, and after Brain Deese said the labor market is showing resilience with some cooling ; there is a good chance, I think, the job number comes in better than expected. The ISM services employment index shows that in the last couple of months, the ISM employment index has improved, making me wonder if the job report comes in hotter than the forecasted 260,000.

If you push that ISM employment index back a month, you can see the changes in the employment index are pretty good at predicting the direction of the change in the BLS job report and that the ISM employment index has risen steadily for the past three months. It is worth thinking about, and if that is the case, then the move higher in rates and the dollar today is only the start.