The US Jobless Claims yesterday came out much better than expected. This is the most timely indicator we have on the labour market.

The market reacted strongly, with the S&P 500 (chart below) rallying by 2.4% in a single day, which was the best one day gain since November 2022.

trading catalysts
S&P 500 - 15 minutes timeframe

WHY THE MARKET REACTED LIKE THAT?

You need to know the underlying reasons to understand the market reaction.

Last Friday, the market got spooked by a surprisingly weak US jobs report where the unemployment rate jumped to 4.3% from 4.1%. We saw a wave of risk-off flows that eventually got exacerbated on Monday.

Now, there's been a debate about the legitness of the data as there were good arguments for a negative short-term impact from Hurricane Beryl.

The US Jobless Claims quelled those fears and increased the confidence that the NFP report might have been indeed just a blip.

Therefore, the market priced out the fears and went back into a more positive risk sentiment, lifting risk assets like the S&P500.

That was a nice tradable catalyst. No matter if you are a scalper, day trader or a long term trader. That was a trading opportunity.

Retail traders generally avoid such events. The majority don't trade them because "trading the news is gambling". That's unfortunately is a retail myth made popular by (you guessed it) influencers/marketers/scammers.

Many got wired to wait for a perfect setup or to wait for the price to come into a certain technical level and so on before taking a position.

The market doesn't know you exist, it's not going into your level if there are reasons to go immediately into a certain direction.