US traders might have been away from their desks on Wednesday, but it looks like they are going to be waking up with some concerns on Thursday.

US equity markets are looking like they are facing another day of steep selling, when traders get back to work. This morning the ES futures opened down and promptly crashed, forcing the CME to intervene. After settling down, the ES continues to push lower and we are looking at being down 1% before the day even begins.

Of course, this comes on the back of the big sell-off on Tuesday, where the SPX was down more than 3%.

Again there are no major catalysts for today’s stock market dump and that is possibly even more concerning. That suggests the sentiment is really bad and there are some major players who are unwinding some risk-on positions. Risk-off plays like gold and the USD/JPY will be in focus today as a result.

Today we get the first look at this months US employment data, with the unofficial ADP number. We are looking at 200K new jobs to have been created and by the looks of it we are going to need a strong number to lift markets.

We also get ISM non-manufacturing PMI out today along with the delayed crude oil inventories.

Forex Signal Update

The FX Leaders Team finished with one winner and the two losses on what was a quiet day of trading with the US off for the day.

EUR/GBP – The EUR/GBP has been testing overhead resistance and it looks like we are knocking on the door of a potential breakout here.

Gold – Active Signal

Gold is pushing higher on the back of some more fear in the market at the moment. We are right back on resistance and that should provide a bit of selling. We have both a long and short term signal open at the moment.

USD/CAD – Active Signal

The USD/CAD has broken out to the upside thanks to a dovish BOC and buying interest in the USD. The trend is up at the moment, so hopefully, price can pull back here.

Cryptocurrency Update

Bitcoin is still stuck below the $4,000 level and at the moment we are just waiting to see which way we might break out.

An analyst on Bloomberg has suggested that BTC could well move to $1,500 given its current trend and at this stage, he has a fair point.

We are basically testing the $4,000 level to the upside and the $3,500 to the downside. We tried the upside recently and that held. So now it’s back to support.