Summary:
- Green open for Wall Street with US500 closing in on all-time high
- US500 looking to post 3rd successive daily gain
- Wells Fargo is lower however after raising fake accounts estimate
The bullish sentiment seen for US stocks in recent sessions has shown little sign of waning today with the US500 trading higher by around 8 points shortly after the cash open. The jitters seen earlier this week on the North Korean missile launch now seem to be fading to the back of investors minds and the market is now approximately only 1% from a record peak. This is all the more impressive given the recent rollover, which, due to the backwardation of the futures curve has seen the contract lose nominal value.
The US500 has added to recent gains today, with the market now just a little more than 20 points from its all-time high. Source: xStation
Traders may be keeping a watchful eye on the market today for any month-end flows, as we head into September which has historically been a bit of a rocky month for US stocks. In terms of individual shares, Wells Fargo is making headlines for the wrong reasons once more. The bank has announced that its fake-account scandal was worth than previously stated with now up to 3.5m accounts potentially unauthorised. Last September America’s 3rd biggest bank declared that up to 2m accounts may have been opened that customers did not authorise with staff eager to meet aggressive sales targets.
The stock is lower by around 0.5% at the time of writing and price could be testing a potentially major support level at 51.00. This level has attracted buyers on several occasions previously and should the market fall through here there could be a spate of stop losses triggered which would lead to a acceleration of the recent declines. The 51.00 handle also coincides with the 61.8% fib retracement of the rally seen since the result of the US election was known.
The announcement of a worse than expected false accounts scandal has seen Wells Fargo fall to test potentially key support at the 51.00 level. Source: xStation