US equity index futures started selling off at following a global outage on Microsoft (MSFT) cloud products, writes Ian Murphy of MurphyTrading.com.
The issue has been identified and appears to relate to an internal network change which has now been reversed, and access is slowly returning. Ironically, Microsoft projected falling revenue growth for the coming quarter in their conference call a few hours before the outage, and the stock is down over 2% in pre-market trading.
Long a bellwether for corporate activity and a darling of the tech sector, the price of MSFT has been a mirror image of the S&P 500 (SPX), closing below the -1ATR line on a weekly chart exactly a year ago as highlighted. Since then, it has entered a classic bearish downtrend making a series of lower highs and lows. The price is currently testing the moving average from below.
MSFT should be at the top of a watchlist for Weekly Trend Following Trades when this market finally bottoms out, as the ticker offers huge liquidity and trends well as evidenced after the Covid selloff (long arrow).
Learn more about Ian Murphy at MurphyTrading.com.
