US stocks struggle to hold at record-highs, turn negative ahead of FOMC minutes

In the pre-Thanksgiving Day holiday session, major US equity indices opened mixed but quickly dropped into negative territory. At the time of reporting, DJIA lost around 8-point and fell to 19,015, while broader S&P 500 opened with loss of over 7-point and turned back below 2,200 mark. Meanwhile, tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed other indices and fell over 0.6%, losing over 30-points to 5,355.

Investors on Wednesday confronted a batch of upbeat US economic releases. Data released on Wednesday showed durable goods orders jumped more-than-expected in October, while weekly jobless claims were mostly on expected lines. 

Stock traders would now take cues from FOMC minutes from the November 1-2 meeting, due for release later during the session. Given that the markets are already pricing-in nearly 100% probability of December Fed rate-hike action, markets are likely to get euphoric on even the slightest of disappointment. 

In other markets, the overall US Dollar Index gained fresh bullish impetus from upbeat US economic data and surged to fresh 13-year high level. The USD/JPY pair surged through 112.00 handle and jumped to the highest level since early April, while the EUR/USD pair touched fresh yearly lows. Meanwhile, stronger greenback weighed heavily on gold, which plunged below $1200 psychological mark for the first time since Feb.

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com, notes, "If the S&P therefore does make a break higher above 2209 then we will see this continue to strengthen and we would be looking at 2225 as a viable short term targeted area..."

She further adds, ".If we fail to make a break this week we are going to see quitter a good retracement back towards the 2175 area...This is key...If lost a deeper correction would be evident with the 2160/55 support then evident...."

To learn more about this topic, check our video analysis