To The Moon

Stocks rallied Friday to kick off November as Amazon led big technology stocks into the green and traders looked past a disappointing jobs report.

DJIA gained 288.73 points, or 0.69%, ending at 42,052.19. S&P 500 advanced 0.41% to close at 5,728.80, and NASDAQ rose 0.8% to 18,239.92.

The jobs report released Friday showed the U.S. economy added just 12,000 jobs in October, far below the Dow Jones estimate of 100,000. This marked the weakest level of jobs creation since December 2020. The unemployment rate held at 4.1%, in line with estimates.

This was a noisy number largely due to hurricanes and labor strikes, so it’s unlikely that this weakness is going to cause the Federal Reserve to pivot away from its expected 25 basis point rate cut at the November meeting. This might be why traders were not reacting too much to the jobs figures, believing the dismal data was affected by hurricanes and a Boeing strike.

The major averages are wrapping up a choppy week. The S&P 500 lost 1.4% in the period, while the Nasdaq slid 1.5%. Postearnings slumps in Microsoft and Meta Platforms weighed on the indexes. The 30-stock Dow inched down 0.2% week to date.

The strong start to November comes after a difficult October for the market. The 30-stock Dow pulled back 1.3% in October. The broad market index fell 1% in that time, while the Nasdaq dropped 0.5%.

S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector Boost By Amazon Earnings

S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary sector was up 1.63% to lead the pack as $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ rallied 6.2% as strength in the cloud and advertising businesses propelled the e-commerce giant above Wall Street’s earnings expectations.

Information Technology sector was up by 0.75% as Intel popped 7.8% after exceeding analysts’ forecasts for revenue and offering strong guidance. The two stocks helped lift investor sentiment following some notable earnings disappointments this week.

But we are still seeing megacap tech stocks in some broadening, but it is still a massive component that deserved some of our attention this week.

Note Yield Climbed Higher

The yield on the 10-year note ended November 1, 2024 at 4.397%, the 2-year note ended at 4.224%.

What To Expect This Week

In addition to the U.S. presidential election on 05 Nov., which has led to elevated volatility, investors are also looking toward the Fed’s two-day policy meeting on 06-07 Nov.

Stocks To Watch

Although semiconductor giant $Intel(INTC)$ posted a third-quarter loss, reflecting the impact of impairment and restructuring charges, its sales for the period came in ahead of forecasts, and its shares gained 7.8%. Intel also struck a positive tone regarding the future of its server and PC businesses, issuing better-than-expected sales guidance for the current quarter. The company has benefitted from an uptick in PC demand driven by the launch of on-device AI features.

Even though we saw Intel gained more than 7% after its earnings, it is still considered weak if we looked at the technicals, multi-timeframe does not give a potential uptrend, and MACD is looking to form a crossover.

But we need Intel to continue trading higher and move well above the short-term and long-term MA, but I do see this as an opportunity to get into Intel, but I would watch the price action during Intel actual trading today (04 Nov).

Outside the tech sector, $Boeing(BA)$ shares climbed 3% after the plane maker reached a tentative deal with its machinists union on a new contract, potentially ending a crippling seven-week strike.

I think BA need more days of upside trading to bring investors confidence back, though the tentative deal on new contracts with the workers is settled, but how about the backlog of delivery to their customer?

This is something we need to be aware and the multi-time frame is showing downward trend, and MACD is making a reverse crossover, so we need to be careful when trading BA.

$Exxon Mobil(XOM)$ slid 1.5% and $Chevron(CVX)$ gained 3% after the oil majors released their quarterly results.

Summary

I think the focus this week will be the result of the US election on the 05 Nov and the FOMC meeting on 06-07 Nov. From the economic data we have gathered so far, we might see Fed take a cautious approach to the next rate cut decision, we could see a 25 basis point cut in December if Fed is positive that inflation remain low and near its target rate of 2%.

But this would also depend on who win the US election, and this could bring Fed back to no rate cut or even a rate hike rather a small one.

I think trader and investors would trade cautiously on Monday (04 Nov), so I am expecting low volume or some profit taking from last week gains.

Appreciate if you could share your thoughts in the comment section whether you think some profit taking activities might happen today (04 Nov) while the market wait for the result of the US election tomorrow (05 Nov).

@TigerStars @Daily_Discussion @Tiger_Earnings @TigerWire appreciate if you could feature this article so that fellow tiger would benefit from my investing and trading thoughts.

Disclaimer: The analysis and result presented does not recommend or suggest any investing in the said stock. This is purely for Analysis.