Shocker! Jobs Report Hits Markets, Fed Rate Hike? Markets, Gold, Bitcoin Sell

My name is Gareth [music] Soloway and I
was a losing trader until I mastered
technical analysis. Logic and charts
beat hype [music] and narratives every
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Good morning everybody and happy Friday.
My name is Gareth Soloway, chief market
strategist here at
verifiedinvesting.com.
So we just got the jobs data, breaking
news just a little while ago. Jobs data
coming in far stronger than anticipated.
Now, you might say, "Wow, this is
great." But it's not for the US stock
market. In fact, it raises the odds of a
Fed rate hike in September coming up on
September 16th. So the stock market on
this better than expected jobs number is
actually seeing some selling pressure.
Now, let's go to the jobs report and see
exactly what we got today. A jobs report
number of a plus 162,000
jobs versus a consensus estimate of
53,000.
That's a beat by 109,000
jobs on the headline August number. Now,
again, a lot of us think these will be
revised down overall. That very well may
be. In fact, I'm in that group that
believes these numbers will be revised
down. But all the market cares about is
what the Federal Reserve thinks going
into their rate decision policy meeting
on the 16th of September. Now, to add
even more strength to these numbers, we
saw revisions for the previous two
reports to the upside. So we're used to
revisions to the downside. In fact, we
saw that June's number was revised up
and July's number was also revised up.
If we go back to the numbers, you can
see a combination of about 55,000
additional jobs were added versus what
had been reported for those two months.
So, all in all, a very strong jobs
report number. We'll see again how it
plays out, and does it change ultimately
what the Fed is going to do.
Unemployment unchanged at 4.1%.
Participation rate uptick just
fractionally. Hourly earnings came in in
line with estimates at 0.3%, and wages
year-over-year up 3.1%
overall. So,
overall, again, good report for the
economy. We're definitely not sliding on
a on a jobs basis into recession. But,
again, like I said, this increases the
odds of a Fed rate hike in a couple
weeks, and the market, the S&P futures,
are seeing some selling pressure due to
that. All right, we'll take a quick look
at the S&P futures here to kind of see
exactly what's going on. The S&P futures
overnight were kind of sideways, which
makes a lot of sense. We were all
waiting on this jobs report number, and
then once it hit, you could see the S&P
futures falling to the downside here.
So, again, nice little draw down there.
Really, if you look at yesterday, only
giving back about half of what we
gained. Yesterday was a very, very
strong update in the markets. And
remember, I remain bullish on the S&P
500, um as long as we hold that key
pivot line on the daily S&P chart, which
we'll look at in just 1 second. Now,
before we do that, I want to check in on
the Fed funds rate rate watch, right?
The Fed rate watch tool, because that
guides us to what markets are expecting.
So, before we heard about this jobs
number, let's take a look. Before, let's
see. There it is. We were at 52.4%
chance that we would see a rate hike in
September. So, it was slightly better
than 50/50 versus the one next to it at
350 to 375, which was at 47.6,
was slightly less than 50% saying we
would not see a rate hike in September
at the September meeting. Now, if we go
back to it and we take a look at where
it stands now, we can see that we did
uptick, although not tremendously. I
want to point this out. This isn't a
resounding they're going to definitely
hike number. It did go up to 58% chance
that they're going to hike in September
coming up, but it is not well above 60%
like you might think following this jobs
report number. Now, why? Why would it
potentially not be more dramatic of a
move? So, number one, the numbers, yes,
they were good, but it doesn't change
the trend totally. So, there's a lot of
analysts out there that are saying,
"Yes, it's strong numbers, but number
one, we all expect revisions down, and
if you look on the underbelly of the
numbers, there were some losses in
hospitality, some losses in other areas
that are still a little bit concerning
for the labor market. Now, the other
factor is next week we have the CPI and
PPI numbers. Those will be the
end-all-be-all numbers determining
whether the Fed will hike or not. So,
CPI, Consumer Price Index, PPI, Producer
Price Index, those will be reported next
week just before the meeting the
following week to determine Fed rate
hike or no rate hike. That is what we
will be watching. And of course, right
here on Verified Investing, we're
breaking down the data for you and
letting you know exactly what to expect
based on probability, which is the key
to success. All right. So, let's get
back to the charts and get into a few
other things here. If we take a look,
S&P futures remain down from that print
on jobs, but again, not tremendously
down compared to how much we rallied
yesterday. Going to the S&P daily chart,
this is where things get more
interesting. So, remember that as long
as we stay above this trend line, I
remain bullish on the S&P. That was a
great call yesterday as obviously we had
a strong move up. Today we'll be opening
down right around here
with the drawdown. Now, it is the day
before a three-day weekend. Generally
markets tend to float neutral to higher.
And what we really want to be watching
here, and we'll go to this in a second,
is where are yields? Where is the
10-year yield? Is it breaking out above
the 4.8%
level? Because that is the ticket right
there. We break out above that 4.8%
we're likely headed to 5% and that would
be a little trickier for the market to
absorb. As long as we stay at this
double top or below at 4.8% the market
should maintain their relative strength
heading into next week's CPI and PPI
numbers. So again, as long as we
maintain above 7570
or so S&P, I would remain bullish with
resistance targeted right up here around
let's see what this is. This is right
around 7,900. So, that would be your
resistance zone in the near term. If we
break below 7570 here, we go into
neutral, neutral zone right here, and
below this yellow line, that would be
the scary one. That's where you got to
say uh-oh, this is a much bigger
breakdown on the S&P 500. Flipping over
to the dollar chart, the dollar catching
a little bit of a bid today after the
last couple days drop. And again, the
more odds of a Fed rate hike, then
obviously the dollar strengthens. Same
thing with the 10-year yield. Look at
this, and this is fascinating, folks.
This is the daily chart of the 10-year
yield. Remember we came up into this
double top right from this level back in
January of 2025. We tagged it, we pulled
back. Look at how today initially we
popped and tagged it again and you could
see we're already pulling back off of
that level. And so again, this is that
line in the sand for yields 4.8 4.81%
that's what I'm watching for an
indicator of relative strength or
weakness. As long as we stay below here,
I would number one say no rate hike. And
again, I may be going against consensus
based on the Fed Watch tool, but I still
don't think they're going to hike rates
in September. I hope I'm wrong because I
think they probably should to curb
inflation even more, but again, I just
don't buy it yet. I don't believe that
they got the backbone that they're
trying to put a front up and show that
they have. We'll see next week after
that CPI and PPI numbers. Now, if those
come in better than expected, meaning
lower, it gives the Fed an out to not
hike rates. So, we'll watch that very
very closely and see next week. But this
line here at 4.8 4.81% that's the one
you want to watch. All right. So, I've
done a big kind of move over macro here
in terms of the markets. We obviously
saw a good move yesterday on the S&P 500
today looking like it's going to be
down, but let's move into some stocks
here because there are some pretty
dramatic moves in the in the individual
stock movement here. So, Lululemon
falling pretty sharply in early trading
yesterday reporting earnings after the
bell collapsing basically down 20%
mammoth fall. Now, remember this stock
was already trading at multi-year lows.
It's now trading at lows not since seen
since 2018.
Now, if we zoom out, this is where
things get really interesting. In fact,
I'm going to go to the weekly chart. So,
you have to go so far back on my screen,
I have to look at the weekly candles
instead of the daily candles. But this
is what gets my attention. If we look at
this, we can clearly see that we have
major technical high pivots back in
2012, 2013,
and even into 2016
and 2018. Then Lululemon broke out. It
had this monstrous move up, and now it's
cratering back down. What this tells me
is, as a swing trade, I love this level.
Now, just because I love it doesn't mean
it's going to work out, but
probability-wise,
this should be significant technical
support, right around $81 to $80 per
share on Lulu. Now, we're still at 98,
so it's still a ways to go, but we could
be here in a few weeks. I mean, maybe
even less, depending on how this thing
trades. And that to me would be a great
buying opportunity on Lululemon. So,
keep that one on your radar. Here we
have Zscaler. Zscaler initially popping
on earnings, coming back in, going
negative now. And if we look at the
daily chart, number one, it was well off
of its highs, but it had rallied on the
daily chart back up going into earnings.
The stock dropping. The only level I
would be interested on a day trade on
this would be right here. If we fell to
about 155 to 150, notice again what we
have. We have pivot high, pivot high,
pivot high, pivot high, breakout. And
this again would be a retrace into
support. Now, this level is not as good
as the long-term level on Lulu. So, this
would only be a day tradeable level for
me, but nonetheless, I'll be watching it
for a day trade around 155 to 154. Other
stocks reporting, Planet Labs. Planet
Labs reporting. That stock again was
literally at 52-week lows going into the
print. So, again, it is up a little bit
in the pre-market. You can see again,
yesterday closing at levels not seen
since 2025. So, maybe not quite a year
ago, but nonetheless, it was
significantly lower going into that
print. That stock's getting a bounce.
It's not a big enough bounce to have me
think about shorting it. First level for
me would be around 2450 to 25. This area
here on the charts. Now, there were some
big moves yesterday, right? So, big
moves yesterday we saw in names like
SpaceX and Tesla on the back of comments
from Elon Musk. What I think is so
amazing about this, if we look at Tesla,
you look at the daily chart here. Let me
get rid of that to make the chart even
bigger. So, number one, I love this
descending trend line. The reason I love
it is because number one, it takes the
high pivot from 2024, but number two,
literally every hit of this trend line
has been an amazing buy level. The
reason that's important is if we fall
back down, let's say in the next 6
months or whenever, to this trend line,
I would be a buyer again. I mean, it's
just it's proving itself time and time
again that this is the trend line to buy
until proven otherwise. So, that's
number one. Now, listen, it's had an
amazing rally, right? We did come up
here and I want to get rid of these
lines to keep my chart as clean as
possible. But, basically, number two, we
filled a gap yesterday, but more
importantly, look at yesterday's highs.
See this high from yesterday? Take this
low pivot and just connect it right
through, and it literally gives us that
high. So, today we're seeing Tesla pull
back pretty sharply, in fact, almost
negating that up move of 5% from
yesterday. And again, for me, is there a
trade here? No. What would I do? I'd
potentially short if it rallies up here,
but more importantly, I would be a buyer
on a swing trade level if it comes back
into this level. Another one I'm
watching closely is Apple. Apple trading
off of its recent lows. Remember, this
was the drop on earnings. So, it's had a
really nice rally back. If it fills this
gap, this is starting to get interesting
as a swing trade short. Very intriguing
level right there. So, I'll keep that on
our radar. All right. So, we've gone
through the macro, we've looked at
individual stocks. Now, we're going to
move into commodities as well as
Bitcoin, which has some interesting
action. Before we do that, I just want
to make an announcement, guys. Today, we
have we have our show that's every
Friday at 1:30 p.m. It's a live show
called Crypto Combat. Today, we're going
to be trading perpetual tokenized,
basically tokenized stocks. So, we're
going to be doing a stock edition today.
I will be trading live with 10K. I can
use up to 300X leverage on some of this
stuff. It This is totally like a Friday
like blow off steam. Let's just go nuts.
Come join us. I'll be competing with two
other traders for basically the
championship in this live edition of
Crypto Combat. So, it's going to be fun.
I surely plan on winning, but I will say
anytime you use big leverage, number
one, I never do that in my real trading
accounts that have millions of dollars
in them. Number two is this is purely
done for fun and entertainment, but it
is certainly entertainment. The amount
of trash talking we do, it certainly is
fun. So, come check us out 1:30 p.m.
today. We will be trading stocks today,
but with insane leverage. All right,
let's get back to the charts here and
take a look. We have USO, which is oil,
US oil dropping overnight, coming back
in here. Interestingly enough, we did
hit short-term resistance on oil, and it
is coming in just a little bit. Now, I
don't know where this will go over the
weekend into next week, but ultimately
on a technical basis, when you break out
of a wedge and you break above this
trend line here, the descending upper
trend line of the wedge, very often,
you'll have a retrace to the scene of
the crime, right? This is that trend
line. So, it was resistance all through
here, but once it breaks out, hits
resistance, often times it wants to come
back in. So, we could be looking at a
retrace on oil back to about $83 a
barrel in the coming week or so. All
right. So, it is down today about 1 and
1/2%. Not a big drop, but it is coming
back in just into the holiday weekend. I
will point this out as well as
historically Labor Day ends the travel
season of driving. And this may be not,
you know, proper to say, but often times
historically in in the Wall Street
groups that I'm in, we talk about how
the refiners and oil producers or
drillers, they want to keep oil up
during the driving season to maximize
profits. And then once we get past Labor
Day, they tend to let price come back
in. We'll see. One thing I will say is
you have refiners like Valero and PSX,
which have a massive crack spread right
now. And it's so ridiculous cuz they are
literally printing money because the the
the the margins of this are so like what
they're charging you and I to drive,
etc. at the gas pump compared to what
they're getting that oil for. Um it is
massive right now. I do expect that to
shrink after Labor Day. And I have
highlighted Valero as one of my favorite
shorts here over the next couple weeks.
The other thing to note is PSX, which is
Phillips
uh 66 here uh or 66, excuse me. This did
put in a daily topping tail yesterday.
So, this is a great reversal topping
signal. You got your topping tail. We
know this chart is extended. Crack
spread should be shrinking, which will
mean margins for them should be
shrinking. I would expect a pullback all
the way down to the low 200s in the
coming couple months on this one. So,
keep this on your radar, guys. This is a
big one. It's actually my largest short
position right now on Valero. I'm short
Valero with members of Smart Money
Stocks and ETFs. Natural gas pushing up
a little bit today. Again, we're still
holding our pivot line. So, again, I
remain bullish on nat gas. Yesterday, it
did fall on inventory reports of a
bigger build than expected, but we are
coming into the winter and seasonality
shortages in Europe and other factors
like data center use should start to
take over the narrative, and I do think
you're likely at least going up to 330
on natural gas. Gold, big pullback
today. Why is gold pulling back? Well,
simply put, better than expected jobs
report, yields up, gold down, and dollar
up as well. So, it just I mean, it's
that simple. Um pretty dramatic drop
yesterday reversing the entire move
yesterday.
Uh am I long or short gold right now?
The answer is not really, nope. Uh just
sitting on the sidelines. The short was
Well, the long was here on the breakout.
The short was this trend line, the buy
for a quick trade here. Now, we don't
have a good enough I don't have a good
enough read, so I'm just sitting on the
sidelines. Remember, folks, you don't
always have to be in a trade. I used to
think I always did cuz I needed that
adrenaline rush, but in essence, being
in cash, waiting for your perfect
opportunity to to pounce is much more
profitable um based on my own history,
frankly. All right. Uh silver today,
same sort of deal. You can see the drop
on silver on the jobs number on the
10-minute chart. Flipping to the daily
chart, coming down. Watch to see if this
level of support holds at around 63 and
a quarter. Lastly, Bitcoin, great rally
yesterday, went right up into this area
of resistance and getting hammered today
back down. Again, why? Because we're
seeing yields push up. So, this is
really becoming with gold an inverse
yield play. When yields come down,
crypto and gold seems to have a surge.
Right now, still a lot of resistance.
Notice the yellow the white trend line
and the yellow zone here, right here.
So, we're still into resistance. As
great as that move yesterday was on
Bitcoin, it's still major resistance.
All right, guys. I've got to get going
to my trading room. Don't forget we have
one-day passes. If you're bored, if
you're off from work today, come join
us. We'll be trading. Today's a half day
in the trading room with the holiday,
but nonetheless, there should be some
good action. We saw Lululemon maybe,
maybe Zscaler, and others. And don't
forget Crypto Combat at 1:30 p.m. today
live. I will be trading with ridiculous
leverage with the other traders. We're
just going to be, you know, s h i t
talking to each other and who's seeing
who can do more damage with the crazy
leverage we have. All right, fun times
on a Friday. Sometimes you got to blow
off some steam. Have a great rest of
your day, guys. I'll see you at the
weekly wrap-up also at 4:20 live today.
Take care.