FTSE 100: Santa Claus Delivers

2015-12-24 10:29:00

Alejandro Zambrano, Market Analyst

Talking Points

FTSE 100 remains strong and traders not long on the back of yesterday’s break to 6172 will probably use a pullback as a reason to enter long positions
U.S. Jobless claims are on tap today but the FTSE 100 will be closed during the release and will reopen Tuesday next week.

Yesterday the FTSE 100 managed to successfully break last week’s high of 6172, this triggered a rally and the FTSE is now near the December 4 high of 6292 (which is a short-term target mention in our outlooks for the last few days). The FTSE 100 is expected to reach our target as long as it trades above the December 22 low of 6026. If the FTSE 100 manages to break the 6292 high, it may reach the psychological level of 6400 over the next week.

Traders not long on yesterday’s breach of 6173 will probably wait for a pullback in the region of the breakout (i.e. 6200 to 6150) before to entering in line with the short-term trend. This is because the risk-reward ratio is favourable for long position in this region.

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Please note that today the FXCM UK100 will close at 12:00 GMT and not open until Tuesday December 29. This means that the UK100 will be closed during today’s batch of U.S. data.

Jobless Claims on Tap

U.S. Jobless Claims are always interesting and tend to move the markets. A Bloomberg News Survey projects an outcome of 270k from 271k last week. A higher reading than anticipated may trigger a slightly softer FTSE 100, but not expected to alter the overall trend. While a stronger than expected out should keep it buoyant.

There is no important stock market data on tap this Friday. Dallas Fed Manufacturing is on tap on Monday December 28.

The next FTSE 100 update will be published on Tuesday December 29, 2015.

FTSE 100 / UK100