Global Stock Market
The global stock futures have eased off a little after a strong rally yesterday. Investors are going to keep a close eye on the presidential election debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden which is likely to inflate volatility for currencies—we could see some spikes for the Chinese yuan and the Mexican peso.
In Asia, the stock market recorded another positive day, but some of the indices closed in negative territory. The Shanghai index advanced 0.51%. The Nikkei stock index also moved higher by 0.12%, while the HIS declined 0.60%. The ASX index fell 0.01%.
Dow Index And S&P 500 Index: Market Breadth
The Dow Jones market breadth saw another boost yesterday. 63% of the Dow Jones stocks traded above their 200-day moving average yesterday. This is a change of +2% from the day before.
The S&P 500 stock breadth also continued to move in the right direction. 58% of the shares traded above their 200-day moving average on Friday. This is a change of +5% from the day before.
Dow Jones And S&P 500 Futures Today
Investors are likely to remain cautious today, given the fact that we have seen a massive rally for the U.S. stock market. Traders will be paying attention to the U.S. Consumer Confidence data that is expected to print the reading of 96. Any number which is better than the anticipation could push the Dow Jones higher.
The Dow Jones futures are set to close the month in negative territory and investors are worried if this will continue into next month as well. On the daily timeframe, the Dow’s price is trading below its 50-day SMA, but it is trading above the 100 and 200-day SMA, which is positive for the index.
The S&P 500 futures, the wider representation of the U.S. equity market, needs to break above the 50-day SMA on the daily timeframe. By looking at the daily chart, it looks quite clear that bulls have taken control again as the price is trading well above the 100-day SMA.
Stock Market Rally
The S&P 500 stock index recorded three days of gains yesterday and closed higher by a small margin of 1.61%. The energy sector led the index higher, and 10 out of 11 sectors closed higher.
Devon (NYSE:DVN) contributed the biggest gain, soaring 11.1%. WestRock (NYSE:WRK) was the largest drag; it fell by 2.32%. The S&P 500 index is up 5.2% over this quarter.
The Dow index also moved higher yesterday, and the Dow stocks moved the index higher by 1.51%. 27 stocks of the Dow Jones Index increased in value, and 3 shares of the Dow index moved lower. Boeing (NYSE:BA) advanced higher by 6.44%, and was the biggest mover for the Dow, while Merck (NYSE:MRK) declined 0.2%, the largest drag for the Dow Jones Industrial Average index.