Coming Up On Wall Street

Welcome to August. There is a little bit of disappointment with August because it is the latter side of the summer. August is the part just before the resumption of school. It's when preparations are made for the next school year. It is just before the cool weather returns. Even though I am out of school for decades, there is a certain nostalgic feeling that I experience surrounding the activity of returning to school. There is something positive and simultaneously something anxiety producing about it for me.

The market is balancing on a thin wire. Bad news on the economy in terms of poor reports on employment and consumer confidence could be a real sticky point with investors. One thing we do know is that it is impossible to predict the market. That could not be more true lately where futures, the price of oil, and the relative value of the dollar no longer provides a sense of how the market will perform each day. Hour to hour volatility is back, at least the width of the swing has been minimal so far. That could change fast, as we know.

Reuters: Jobs data, earnings latest test for stocks

The Standard & Poor's 500 .SPX index has been stuck near its 200-day moving average, a level used to determine market direction...


... the government's non-farm payrolls report, due Friday, looms large...


...the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing report, due Monday, is expected to show growth for a 12th straight month.

What is a 200 day moving average?

Indicator used in Technical Analysis representing the average closing price of a stock over the most recent 200 days. It represents a long-term trend and is typically superimposed on a Line Chart. A break above the 200-day moving average is a Buy Signal and vice versa. source