Behavior Models for the Day As with every Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement day, there is a model for the stock market to follow pre and post announcement. Certain environments have very strong tendencies while others do not. Eight meetings ago was one of the rare times where the models strongly called for a rally on statement day which was correct as well as a decline a few days later which was also correct. Today, as with most statement […]
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Behavior Models for the Day As with every Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement day, there is a model for the stock market to follow pre and post announcement. Certain environments have very strong tendencies while others do not. Seven meetings ago was one of the rare times where the models strongly called for a rally on statement day which was correct as well as a decline a few days later which was also correct. Today, as with most statement […]
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That certainly felt like a quick six weeks since the Fed’s last statement day and press conference! Today, Yellen & Co. conclude their two day meeting with a statement to be released at 2:00 pm est and no press conference. As has been the case since the first taper last December, the Fed will reduce their assets purchases by another $10 billion to $25 billion per month on their to wrapping up quantitative easing this fall. There has been a […]
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My how time flies… It’s Fed decision day again with Janet Yellen set to announce another $10 billion cut from bond purchases, keeping the FOMC on pace to wind down QE Unlimited later this year. After the 2pm announcement, Ms. Yellen will head over to the always entertaining (NOT) press conference. One thing I am sure of is that the Fed chair will not commit another rookie, foot in mouth, Joe Biden esque’ gaffe by committing to a specific timeline […]
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The Fed concludes their two day meeting today with the market expecting no increase in interest rates and another $10 billion tapered from their QE program. That would leave the Fed to continue purchasing treasury bonds and mortgage backed securities to the tune of $45 billion per month. After Janet Yellen’s rookie gaffe six weeks ago during the press conference, the chair is lucky that there won’t be another press conference today. Rather, the Fed will release a statement with […]
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My how time flies! We just said goodbye to Ben Bernanke and hello to Janet Yellen and now it’s time for Fed day again. It is widely expected that the FOMC will taper another $10 billion to $55 billion per month in quantitative easing as it continues down the path to wrapping up QE by the end of the year. There is also an expectation that the Fed changes their interest rate scenario from quantitative to qualitative with Yellen giving […]
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It’s really embarrassing that it’s been almost two months since I began speaking about my thoughts for 2014, yet I have been unable to mass distribute them. Shame on me! So far, to those folks who have read them, the comments and questions have been great. Keep them coming! Regular readers of Street$marts and this blog won’t be surprised at most of the forecast, but I did throw in a few new items. As always, I had a lot of […]
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On Monday, I discussed how a very short-term rally was close at hand. I continued that yesterday morning about the prospects for a Turnaround Tuesday rally. The bulls came back to work on Tuesday in a very underwhelming way. The open was without conviction. Volume was anemic, further solidifying my stance that the market isn’t close to a low of any significance. With Apple’s disaster, stocks had a chance for a big gap down and short-term washout. But that wasn’t […]
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Since the start of the year, I have been very cautious on the stock market, primarily due to market sentiment being at rally killing levels along with finally losing the tailwind of the positive calendar effects. The risk/reward looked so unfavorable that we took across the board action in many of our portfolios raising cash to even 100% in some cases, levels not seen since 2012. On average the major indices have gone nowhere for the past month with the […]
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Greetings from usually cold and snowy, but recently tropical and wet Vermont! After three days of skiing in the rain, Old Man Winter came back and cut the temps by 70%! From short sleeve shirts and a light jacket, I am gearing up in full winter weather garb for wind chills around 0 today on top. Ben Bernanke did it! The master. The maestro. He saw the downside of announcing a taper to their $85B a month in asset purchases, but […]
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