FTSE for Friday: when will obsession with this level end?
The FTSE 100 has been reluctant to budge from current levels, but independent analyst Alistair Strang believes there's a catalyst that will soon force a move.
5th December 2025 07:40
by Alistair Strang from Trends and Targets
The anticipation for the US lowering interest rates with an announcement next Wednesday 10th appears to be smothering the usual dread of the first Friday of the month US payrolls news. As this will be the first “proper” announcement since the US Government shutdown ceased, it’s unlikely to be collated as a bunch of optimistic estimates, risking a reality bomb dropping on the markets on Friday. Even the UK market has been tiptoeing around this week in a manner similar to walking through a dark room, knowing there are some small bits of Lego on the floor.
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Regardless, the FTSE 100 seems to be having a love affair with the 9,700 level presently, remaining fascinated with it for the last seven sessions. It makes us question whether this pause in market movements shall be left behind due to useful numbers from the USA or a miserable wait until the next Bank of England decision on UK interest rates on Thursday 18 December.
In-house, we’ve an expectation of some dud US jobs numbers provoking near-term market reversals, then the US Federal Reserve decision next Wednesday pulling things back upward again, just in time for a proper Christmas rally.
From an immediate perspective, we shall be a little interested if the FTSE manages above 9,728 as this should create a lift to a fairly useless 9,747 points. But in the event the FTSE manages to bubble above 9,747 points, we shall regard it as moving into bigger picture territory with 9,835 exerting an attraction. Should this movement trigger, the tightest stop looks like 9,703 points, a fairly reasonable gift.
Our alternate scenario for the near term kicks in, should 9,703 break as this calculates with an unlikely potential for reversal to 9,623 points with our longer-term secondary, if broken, down at 9,580 points.
Have a good weekend.
Source: Trends and Targets. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.
Alistair Strang has led high-profile and "top secret" software projects since the late 1970s and won the original John Logie Baird Award for inventors and innovators. After the financial crash, he wanted to know "how it worked" with a view to mimicking existing trading formulas and predicting what was coming next. His results speak for themselves as he continually refines the methodology.
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