Stocks Break Down – Plenty Of Reasons To Support Bull Market
After the economy created 100,000 more jobs than expected, stocks and bonds decided that was bad news and promptly sold off. Makes sense, right? No, it really doesn’t although as I wrote about on Friday it is because the perception is now less help from the Fed. I have also been waiting to see if stocks poked to new highs first and then we could sell or if they fell below December’s low which would hasten a buying opportunity. The […]
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Date: January 12, 2025
New Jobs Soar – Markets May Not Like That
The government released the December employment report this morning. Surprisingly, the economy created 100,000 more new jobs than economists forecast. This is great news on the surface that the economy continues to hum along. It also speaks volumes to the lack of forecasting ability by economists with this very volatile monthly number. Here’s the problem. The current market regime is that good news is bad news because the Fed will provide less accommodation through lower rates. So while the economy […]
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Date: January 11, 2025
Bears Thwart Bulls To Own The Edge
The S&P 500 remains in the same trading range I have been discussing. On Monday I thought the bulls had the ball and would run to at least 6050 before the bears would start to fight. The bulls lost steam on the way and the bears pounded in a big way on Tuesday. We also saw more significant selling on Tuesday, especially in the tech sector. For now, we have to sit back and tolerate the frustration of not having […]
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Date: January 8, 2025
Who Sucked $330 Billion Out Of The Markets?
As we now have confirmation, the Santa Claus Rally failed in 2024. I will dig up the stats about the negativity for Q1 and report back shortly. Here is what I learned over the weekend from my friend Rob Hanna of Quantifiable Edges about the last week of December which is always ripe for massive portfolio games. It’s kinda wonky but I will give you the high level view. First, the Fed sold more than $30 billion of securities from […]
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Date: January 6, 2025
Looks Like The Grinch Won
While there is still one day left in the famed Santa Claus Rally (SCR), the S&P 500 would need to close above 5974. That’s a tall task given that it closed at 5869 last night. Assuming we don’t see a 100 point rally the SCR failure would usher in some bearish studies for Q1. I will touch on those next week. For sure, detractors will claim that the SCR failed last year and 2023 was a monster year so we […]
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Date: January 3, 2025
Santa Leaving Coal
The Santa Claus Rally (SCR) was teed up beautifully as I wrote last week. The markets had that one-day plunge from Jay Powell’s less than stellar press conference and the bears followed through the next day to a small degree. Then we had that emotional reversal 9 days ago on the largest expiration of derivatives of the year and I think of all-time. As we know from decades in the markets, just because something looks perfect it doesn’t mean that […]
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Date: December 30, 2024
The Most Bullish Seasonal Set Up In Years – Santa Claus To Call Broad & Wall
For the past few weeks I have discussed that seasonal studies suggested a stock market low by December 20th which coincided with the weekly, monthly and quarterly options expiration. That also happened to be the single largest expiration of all-time. As I also mentioned, while I have been in the mild to modest stock market pullback camp, I was caught off guard by the magnitude of Wednesday’s post-FOMC plunge. After Wednesday’s drop, I thought we needed one more new low […]
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Date: December 23, 2024
Powell Delivers Lump Of Coal – One More New Low Needed
On Wednesday the FOMC cut interest rates by 1/4% as expected. Stocks sold off about 1/2%. Then Jay Powell press conference began. No one seemed to like what Powell was selling. Lots of new uncertainty. Fewer rate cuts. Wait and see. Well all was said and done the “risk on” were battered, bruised and pleading for mercy. While I had been discussing a mild and modest pullback I absolutely did not expect that kind of magnitude on the downside. As […]
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Date: December 21, 2024
FOMC To Cut 1/4% – Bears Still Nibbling
Today is the last FOMC meeting of 2024. Obviously, because it’s December! The market model for the day is plus or minus 0.50% and then a big move post 2pm. The market was setting up a rally after 2pm, but recent action mitigated that trend to a coin flip. There are a few outlier studies that suggest a large selloff on Fed day, but the more mainstream ones are not corroborating. Jay Powell and the FOMC are going to cut […]
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Date: December 18, 2024
Seasonal Trends About To Change
The narrow stock market rally continues along. I think the Dow Industrials have been down something like 8 straight days. Small and mids have to be close. My take on them has clearly been wrong this month. And while there seems to be a reemergence of leadership from large cap growth which we also own, I do think the broad market is going to have its day in the sun beginning this week. A number of seasonal factors turn positive […]
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Date: December 16, 2024
