Columbus Day is observed today in the United States. This is a partial market holiday in the US as bond markets will be shut for trading today while trading session on NYSE and Nasdaq stock exchanges will be held as usual. Nevertheless, somewhat thinner liquidity may be expected on the markets in the afternoon. Apart from that, there will be no data releases from the United States today and newsflow will generally be lighter in the afternoon.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of events scheduled for the later part of the week that will surely catch stock traders’ attention. US CPI inflation report and FOMC minutes will be published on Wednesday while the US retail sales report will see daylight on Friday. Last but not least, large-cap US companies will start reporting Q3 financials this week. Among this week’s top reporters, investors can find:

  • Wednesday – JPMorgan (JPM.US)
  • Thursday – Citigroup (C.US), Morgan Stanley (MS.US), Wells Fargo (WFC.US)
  • Friday – Goldman Sachs (GS.US)

Taking a look at US500, we can see that the index took a dive lower just after futures markets opened for a new week and has been trying to recover since. Index tested the support zone ranging below the 50% retracement of a downward move launched at the end of September (4,365 pts area). This area also marked the upper limit of the earlier-broken trading range. A retest may suggest that the index is about to resume upward move. 4,452.5 pts – a textbook range of the upside breakout from the trading range – is the major target for bulls.