The Nasdaq lost all its earnings-driven gains, reaching new lows influenced by hedging activities concerning the Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) report and possible tariff concerns. The temporary respite since the April 9 tariff pause led to a positive market repricing, but the trade deal expectations capped this effect. <\/p>\n
Attention has now turned back to the Federal Reserve and interest rates. The Fed’s recent decision left rates unchanged; however, statements were slightly less favourable than anticipated, which did not initially move the market. Market movements followed the Fed Chair Powell’s Press Conference, where he did not hint at potential rate cuts, perceived as more hawkish.<\/p>\n
Despite a brief recovery from strong earnings by Microsoft and Meta, the market declined again. This decline was possibly driven by hedging for the NFP and tariffs with Canada and Switzerland. Data has become essential as central banks offer no forward guidance, meaning market reactions will closely watch economic data releases.<\/p>\n
Long-term, the Nasdaq maintains an upward trend, despite recent pullbacks. On daily, 4-hour, and 1-hour charts, buyers are expected to lean on upward trendlines, while sellers push for lower prices. Market actions today will conclude with the US NFP report and ISM Manufacturing PMI.<\/p>\n
As of today, August 1st, 2025, the market has received the data it was waiting for, and the picture is hawkish. The Non-Farm Payrolls report showed the economy added 225,000 jobs, beating expectations of 180,000, while wage growth came in hot at 0.4% for the month. This strong labor market data reinforces the Federal Reserve’s recent cautious tone and makes a near-term interest rate cut less likely.<\/p>\n
For derivatives traders, this means the path of least resistance in the immediate term is likely lower for the Nasdaq. The market is quickly repricing the odds of a September rate cut, with CME FedWatch futures now indicating less than a 25% probability, down from over 50% just last week. This rapid shift in expectations will continue to weigh on growth-sensitive tech stocks.<\/p>\n
We are seeing this reflected in market volatility, with the VIX index pushing above 19 for the first time since June 2025. This indicates that the cost of portfolio insurance is rising, and traders should consider buying protective puts on indices like the QQQ to hedge against further downside. The increased cost means acting sooner rather than later may be prudent before volatility climbs even higher.<\/p>\n
The key technical level to watch is the major upward trendline on the daily chart, which has supported the market since the tariff de-escalation in April. A decisive break below this level would likely signal a deeper correction. Sellers will see this as an opportunity to initiate new short positions or buy put spreads to target lower lows.<\/p>\n
However, the longer-term bullish trend is not necessarily broken. The Fed\u2019s ultimate bias is still towards cutting rates, just not yet, and buyers will be looking for opportunities. We should expect dip-buyers to test the waters around this trendline, perhaps by selling cash-secured puts at lower strike prices to collect premium while defining their entry point.<\/p>\n
We have seen this type of environment before, particularly during the 2022-2023 rate hike cycle. In that period, fighting a hawkish Fed was a losing strategy, and rallies were often sold until data clearly showed a weakening that forced the Fed\u2019s hand. The strong jobs report today suggests we are not at that inflection point yet.<\/p>\n
With the NFP report now behind us, all eyes will turn to the next inflation report, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), due in the second week of August. A hot CPI reading would validate the jobs data and could trigger the next leg down. Therefore, any long positions taken in the coming days carry significant event risk heading into that release.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nasdaq slips to new lows amid rate concerns, tariff fears, and anticipation of key economic data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}