Jobs in July were 528,000, well above the 258,000 expected. Wage growth rose 0.5% month-on-month, 5.2% year-on-year, also above expectations. The bulls wanted slower job growth to keep pressure on the Fed to hold back on rate hikes. Touches also wanted lower wage growth to show inflation was peaking. It’s not happening either. Good News: Strong Labor Market Argues Against Recession! Bad news: Strong jobs numbers and hot wage numbers refute the “peak inflation” narrative. The Fed remains hawkish. Most of this week has been spent looking at whether the S&P 500 can break into a new trading range, between 4150 and 4200 perhaps. No wonder this new range is proving difficult to break into. With the fundamentals so murky, traders are full of talking about technical levels. CFRA’s Sam Stovall noted yesterday that the 4231.66 level, which is a 50% retracement of the roughly 1,100-point loss the S&P saw between its Jan. 3 high and June 16 low. “However, the jury remains out on whether this is the beginning of the end of the bear market rally or the end of the beginning of a new bull market advance,” Stovall wrote. “Should the S&P 500 close above 4231.66, history says, but does not guarantee, that the stock market has likely entered a new bull market, as none of the previous 13 bear markets since 1946 enjoy a 50% retracement of their decline only to endure a subsequent selloff that exceeded the prior low.”
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