The Kirk Report

Back With A Vengeance

September is sure off to a fine start by living up to its reputation for being a rough month for the market. Although there were high hopes that as Wall Street returned to work this week we'd see the big buyers return, instead the bears are back with a vengeance.

There were lots of reasons for today's decline including the fact that market participants just have lost patience. After failing once again to take out the 1300 level, they're in give up mode. Rumors that several hedge funds are imploding are also not helping matters.

The bottom line is that the market broke through some key technical levels (S&P 1250 for one) and we're setting up for a move back to test those July lows. Needless to say, it is so very important that we don't set a lower low in this cycle as it only will strengthen the long-term downtrend channels we've been monitoring all year.

Lots Of Data

Good morning. Traders are keeping busy by sorting through some sluggish back-to-school sales and a lot of economic data while oil prices attempt to rally. Both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank kept interest rates the same.

Premarket gainers: NAV, SOLR, CRMT, CLNE, CBAK, UN, HAYZ, ZUMZ, NCOC, MR, VSE, MDVN, NBIX, URRE, SAI, STP, RDN, RTP, CAPA, & WMT.

Premarket losers: CIEN, GHM, OSUR, SHPGY, TEX, ANF, ZNH, DLX, LAZ, NDAQ, UAUA, NWA, TPP, RBS, MTW, VE, JNPR, ASML, MRVL, & AMR.

After the open, we have the ISM non-manufacturing index and this afternoon some Fedspeak from both Richard Fisher and Janet Yellen. Obviously, tomorrow's jobs report will be as important as usual and traders will use today to position ahead of that report. The consensus is for a loss of up to 85,000 jobs and a 0.1% increase in the unemployment rate to 5.8%.

Premarket futures suggest a slow to negative start to the day but as we've seen this week, they haven't been a particularly useful tell. Look for the market to establish some direction after the ISM. Have a terrific Thursday!