Good morning. Bit of a slow start on the FTSE there in terms of points. The 6150 short came good, though there was a suspicious spike up to 6174 before it dropped down to the 6035 level. The long managed a few points off the support, but wasn’t quite the easy ride up I was hoping for. The 200ema at 6035 on the 30 minute chart provided good support in the evening, and the bulls are pushing to get this back above 6100 as I write. We have NFP out at 13:30 today, with the US expected to add 203K jobs in September, back above August’s 173K.
US & Asia Overnight from Bloomberg
Asian stocks fell as investors awaited a monthly government report on U.S. jobs to gauge the strength of the world’s largest economy.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped 0.5 percent to 125.22 as of 9:16 a.m. in Tokyo. Economists expect U.S. employers to have added about 201,000 workers in September after a gain of 173,000 in August. The data will factor into the Federal Reserve’s next rate decision, due Oct. 28, as the central bank also weighs global financial-market turmoil.
The regional benchmark index’s drop Friday trimmed its advance this week to 0.1 percent with mainland Chinese markets currently shut for a week-long holiday.
“Asia is in for a bit of indigestion today,” said Angus Nicholson, a Melbourne-based market analyst at IG Ltd. “Some of the gains will be pared back as the markets position themselves ahead of the all-important U.S. non-farm payrolls number due out tonight.”
Japan’s Topix index retreated 0.6 percent. Bank of Japan officials see little need for an immediate expansion of monetary stimulus and would prefer to hold off to get a clearer picture of the economic outlook, according to people familiar with their deliberations.
Board members who gather for a policy meeting Oct. 6-7 want the opportunity to observe further economic data and developments in financial markets at home and abroad, according to the people, who asked not to be named because talks are private.
Regional Gauges
South Korea’s Kospi index added 0.3 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index lost 0.4 percent. New Zealand’s NZX 50 Index was little changed. Markets in Hong Kong have yet to open.
E-mini futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent. The underlying gauge rose 0.2 percent in New York on Thursday, reversing a drop of as much as 1 percent.
American manufacturing barely grew in September. The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 50.2, the weakest since May 2013, the Tempe, Arizona-based group reported Thursday. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. [Bloomberg]
FTSE Outlook
We have a bit of resistance at 6100 to start with this morning so I think we may see a dip this morning to take us down 6055 which looks like fairly decent support so worth a long here. Looking at the Dow I can see a dip and rise day for that today, with 16180ish level providing the support. If those levels hold then we could be on for a fairly decent bounce today, probably after NFP comes out at 13:30. The bulls will be keen to at least reach the top of the daily channels around the 6150 level, though with both Bianca channels there and going into the weekend we may see a pullback from there as profit is banked if that 6050 level does provide support. So, fairly simple plan today and going for a V shaped day.