Wall Street benchmarks recover from worst levels, but end in a sea of red

• Wall Street made for an impressive turnaround following a stab to the downside, despite that, all three benchmarks were ending in the red.
• However, the indexes managed to claw their way higher from some of the worst levels for Thursday. The DJIA had, at one stage, lost 785 points at its worst levels and the S&P 500 dropped 0.17% to 2,695.95.

Final figures showed also showed that the Nasdaq Composite COMP ending higher by 0.4% to 7,188 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, ended lower by 79 points, or 0.3%, to 24,948. 

Sino/US trade relations breaking down over the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, by the Canadian authorities. The U.S. futures selling was so intense at one stage that circuit breakers were triggered. Energy prices also led the selling on Wall Street due to OPEC members delaying their decision on output cuts on Thursday. There is a growing sentiment that an announcement that should follow Friday’s meeting with non-OPEC producers will not be enough to appease the bulls hoping an agreement to reduce output aggressively.

Best and worst

The moves were led by financials and energy, as trade-war jitters and s plunging oil prices prompted the next wave selling in the US. Due to the OPEC inconclusive meeting, energy giants Exxon Mobil slid 3%, Chesapeake Energy plunged 8.43% and Marathon Oil collapsed by 6%. Due to the Sino/US standoff, Industrial bellwethers such as Boeing and Caterpillar dropped more than 2%. Closing numbers had Exxon Mobil down by 1.35%, Chesapeake Energy by  6% and Marathon Oil down 3.5%. Boeing and Caterpillar managed to pare back some losses to end the day down about 0.6%.

DJIA levels

While below the 38.2% Fibo of the recent rout and with the daily pin bar deeply entrench below the 23.6% Fibo support at 24778, the odds are in the bear’s favour and it will not take much to clear out those commitments considering that was likely the last pocket change left over fro the bulls in an attempts to protect the Oct rout’s lows down at 24121. Daily RSI remains negative but there was some divergence today between the index’s lows and RSI, which may be a warning to the bears.