Why do we say that this Friday the market will face a choice?

Let's recap a few key moments from yesterday:

5 PM: Trading before the opening of the US stock market showed no major movement, which indicates good news, so there was a slight rebound.

10:30 PM: The US stock market opened, and the NASDAQ experienced a slight decline, but it's manageable.

This is because two data points were released earlier:

21:15: US ADP employment numbers for December

21:30: US initial jobless claims for last week

The ADP report indicates a slow cooling of the job market, with a significant slowdown in private employment growth in December.

Since it has slowed down, then interest rates can continue to be cut, right? So it's good for rate cuts.

However, the initial jobless claims released the same day fell to 201,000, the lowest in 11 months, which completely contradicts the employment market picture presented by the ADP report.

This is quite awkward, as this does not support rate cuts.

So good and bad news counterbalanced each other.

One piece of good news and one piece of bad news led to a slight decline.

The US stock market will be closed on Thursday, so there shouldn't be any major fluctuations.

However, on Friday, non-farm payroll data will be released. According to the Federal Reserve's usual practice, they generally give a slap and then a sweet date, so during the easing cycle, it should be good.