Thursday's Markets Update (January 26, 2023),

27 Jan 2023 by rate3

On Thursday, the Durable Orders report surprised analysts with a surge of 5.6 percent (to 286.9 billion - the sharpest increase in more than two years, since July 2020). It was led by a doubling of civil aircraft orders (+116 percent or +29 billion; it appears that a large portion of this gain came from Boeing reporting in December an order from United Airlines for 100 Boeing 737 MAX and 100 Boeing 787 Dreamliner).

Also, on January 26, a number of other leading economic indicators hinted at some moderation, including: The Chicago Fed National Activity Index showing a decrease of -0.49 in December, up slightly from -0.51 in November; The Kansas Fed Composite Index flattening to -1 in January, up slightly from -4 in December and -2 in November; December's New Home Sales increased by +2.3 percent (+0.7 in Nov). Additionally, the four-week average of jobless claims came in below expectations, at 197.5K, instead of 209K.

At the same time, the US economy continues to slow down, as shown by the Bureau of Economic Analysis reporting an annual GDP growth rate of 2.9 percent in Q4, while it was 3.2 percent in Q3. However, it exceeded market forecasts of 2.6 percent.

Despite all of that positivity, technical factors (a daily RSI's heavy overbought) as well as the looming FOMC meeting had the most influence on traders on Thursday. As a result, NASDAQ (open: 11458, close: 11512) and BTC (open: 23127, close: 23037) had a limited range, adding a meager 0.5 and 0.4 percent respectively during the day session.