US stocks trade flat as investors look for fresh catalysts

On the last trading day of the week, the US stock markets witnessed a subdued opening and were little changed during first hour of trading as investors looked for fresh catalyst to place their bets on the next move. 

Markets largely ignored a Federal Reserve report showing industrial production was flat in February and capacity utilization slipped to 75.4% from an upwardly revised 75.3 in January. Staying with the economic data, the Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment index climbed more-than expected and came-in at 97.6 for March, up from February's 96.3 (revised higher from 95.7 reported earlier).

Investors' attention would remain glued to the G20 meet in Germany and, the meeting between the US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

At the time of writing, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up around 10-points at 20,943. Meanwhile, both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index were nearly unchanged from yesterday's closing level. 

Markets, however, could turn volatile on Friday in wake of the so-called quadruple witching, with stock-index futures, stock-index options, stock options and individual stock futures all expire on the same day.

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com notes, “if we start to trade lower and g below 2375 then we are back to the 2361/58 band....Initial support at 2380....lose this we are looking at 2375...lose that and then as I said...we trade lower....Now if we can break 2405 then we can go to 2425...”

“DJI...21025 is the level to clear today to make a run for the highs of 21169...we cant do that we come back to 20830 28000 area....This really has to hold to stop the market really begin to fall.....if it doesn't hold 20620/11 is the target..”