Day Traders Diary

12/5/24

The major averages reversed course today falling into the red ahead of monthly unemployment numbers tomorrow and an earthquake in California. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 248 points, or 0.55%. The S&P 500 fell 11 points or 0.19% while the Nasdaq dropped 34 points or 0.18%.

Traders on Thursday looked ahead to key U.S. employment data on Friday. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast the U.S. economy added 214,000 jobs in November.

This labor report could affect the Federal Reserve's decision next week on cutting rates or not. The 10-year Treasury yield was down just a basis point to 4.17%. The 2-year Treasury note yield rose 2 basis points to 4.14%.

Most stocks and sectors reversed course after up for most of the day. The banks were still green. In the tech space, Tesla and Palantir, two stocks tied to the Trump administration, were up 2% today.

Bitcoin rose over 100,000 for the first time only to reverse course with the markets in the afternoon, closing down in the red by 4pm. Bitcoin related stocks, MicroStrategy and Coinbase reversed course, falling 4% and 3% respectively.