Technical Analysis
Nasdaq set a record on October 2 after a soft jobs report. QQQ rose 1.02% to a record close of 749.58 after touching an all-time high of 754.54, and the Nasdaq-100 gained 1.00% to 30,807.93; SPY added 0.74% to 769.64 and the S&P 500 0.73% to 7,722.72. The close came 0.66% below the session high.
QQQ is 3.00% above its 20-day (727.78), 4.57% above its 50-day (716.82) and 12.11% above its 200-day, with both shorter averages rising; RSI(14) stands at 65.4. The 748.35 prior swing high, broken on the day, is now the nearest support. SPY trades above all its averages, but its 20-day remains flat.
Leadership was narrow. All ten of the largest Nasdaq-100 names rose, led by TSLA (+4.65%) and AVGO (+3.35%), while equal-weight QQEW gained only 0.24% and the share of Nasdaq-100 members above their 50-day slipped to 43.56%. Long-term breadth improved: 57.58% now trade above their 200-day.
Main technical conclusion: the QQQ uptrend is intact on all three horizons and has broken to a new record, but the breakout came on lower volume and without breadth confirmation on the medium term. Holding the 747.53–748.35 cluster confirms it; below lie 744.67 and modeled zero gamma at 742.15.
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Fundamental Analysis
September payrolls rose by only 29,000 against 90,000 expected on October 2, unemployment rose to 4.2% and wage growth slowed to 3.0% year on year, the lowest since May 2021. Odds of an October hike collapsed.
Bonds did not follow. Yields fell after the release, then reversed: the 2-year closed 5 bp higher at 4.83% and the 10-year 4 bp higher at 5.28%, with the 10-year real yield at 2.92%. Dallas Fed President Logan said the policy rate needs to rise another 50 bp or more; pricing moved the next hike to December rather than removing it (as reported by Newsquawk).
FactSet's October 2 edition lowered the S&P 500 forward P/E to 19.0 as earnings outpaced price; the forward earnings yield of 5.26% sits 0.02 pp below the 10-year. Four-week forward EPS revisions remain strong at +1.30%, while high-yield spreads have widened 58 bp over 20 sessions to 324 bp.
Main fundamental conclusion: the scorecard holds at −5 of ±14 on six of seven components, a moderately unfavorable backdrop. Earnings revisions remain the principal offset; real rates, credit and oil continue to weigh, and credit is now 17 bp from the threshold that would tip the scorecard to unfavorable.
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Volatility
Regime. The soft September payrolls report removed the event premium on October 2. VIX fell 1.08 to 15.31 and VIX9D 13.9% to 12.06, while VXN declined 1.31 to 21.20, narrowing the Nasdaq premium over the broad market to 5.89 points.
Short versus long volatility. The curve steepened: VIX/VIX3M fell to 0.850, exactly at the lower edge of the Normal band, and VIX9D/VIX to 0.788. October VX futures settled at 17.648 (−0.453), less than the decline in spot — the market is not carrying the lower spot level into the October VIX expiry.
Nasdaq volatility. QQQ 30-day implied volatility fell 0.94 points to 18.80% while 10-day realized edged up to 16.70%; the premium over 20-day realized narrowed to 3.82 points. Skew flattened to +4.29 points and the 10Δ put cheapened 1.53 points. The October 9 weekly straddle implies ±1.72%.
Principal warning. On our model, net GEX jumped to +$3.29 billion per 1% move and QQQ closed 1.00% above zero gamma at 742.15 — gamma is now positive and dealer hedging dampens moves. The cushion is asymmetric: a 1% decline would take modeled GEX to about zero and a 2% decline to −$2.94 billion; a close below 738.44 would place the market in negative gamma. Put wall 725 and call wall 760 are model estimates, not observed positions.
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