PCE comes out later this morning, providing the most up-to-date picture of the challenge facing the Fed. Judging from yesterday’s 2% pop, investors are hopeful that inflation might be leveling off.
Futures are off very slightly.
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PCE comes out later this morning, providing the most up-to-date picture of the challenge facing the Fed. Judging from yesterday’s 2% pop, investors are hopeful that inflation might be leveling off.
Futures are off very slightly.
continuing… (more…)
The Information reports that Sequoia Capital has issued a warning to its startup founders, detailing a series of moves that should be taken to avoid a “death spiral.”
“Its latest warning to its portfolio companies takes the form of a 52-slide presentation, a copy of which was viewed by The Information. Sequoia described the current combination of turbulent financial markets, inflation and geopolitical conflict as a “crucible moment” of uncertainty and change. Sequoia told founders not to expect a speedy economic bounceback akin to what followed the start of the pandemic because, it warned, the monetary and fiscal policy tools that propelled that recovery “have been exhausted.””
Sitting here in Silicon Valley today, where one bedroom shacks still fetch $1.5 million despite sliding tech stock prices, it’s not hard to imagine that the worst is yet to come.
Futures are up modestly this morning, with our analog still on track.
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It’s a big week for economic data, with earnings and outlook announcements already setting a bearish tone. First up this morning is April new home sales, which came in at 591k units – a 16.6% drop from March and a 32.9% plunge from April 2021. It barely beat the 2020 pandemic lows.
As everyone now knows, this is a direct result of the sharp rise in mortgage rates which is a direct result of the sharp rise in inflation resulting from the Fed’s policy mistake: driving rates much too low for much too long as discussed last July [see: Time to Sell Your Home?]
Over the past month, it has seemed that the old “bad news is good news” meme which played such an important role during ZIRP had been sidelined. Based on recent Fedspeak, however, it’s probably better characterized as being in cold storage. The Fed’s determination to reduce inflation will be sorely tested in the days ahead.
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Futures are up sharply following Friday’s 140-point reversal which finally saw SPX/ES reach the -20% mark. As we discussed last week, the market should surprise many this week.
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Futures are up about 1% this morning – par for the course for an options expiration Friday. The Chinese prime rate cut is no doubt helping. 
But, what happens next week as new and pending home sales, durable goods, FOMC minutes, GDP, PCE and Michigan Sentiment come rolling in? This will be a serious test of the market’s ability to hold its lows, let alone continue to bounce.
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We’re seeing more backtesting this morning, consolidation after yesterday’s strong surge.
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Futures are all over the map this morning, with the overnight losses largely erased at one point.
The key, though, is that SPX bounced back above a key Fib level after tagging its 20% target last week. Although it’s still early stages, our analog is in play.
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Friday the 13th – an inauspicious day to break a new analog! With SPX nailing our downside target and futures breaking out of the falling wedge pattern yesterday, we’re off to the races.
These things don’t always work out. But, when they do, it can be a career-making trading opportunity. The one which worked out absurdly well was back in 2011. The 22% correction played out almost exactly as forecast, with the vicious 11-day, 18% plunge starting on the very day and within 1 point of what the analog promised. You can read all about it HERE.
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ES spent 11 hours hanging around our next downside target yesterday. While the session had many characteristics of capitulation, the fact that SPX didn’t quite reach significant support (3956) suggests that the overnight ramp is a head fake.
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The financial press usually starts to take things seriously about this point in a correction. The permabulls aren’t calling bottoms any more, while the bears are licking their chops. It never fails, someone on TV says something like “no one saw this coming.”
It’s silly, of course. What they mean is that they didn’t see it coming. Plenty of others did. Some, like us, saw it months ago. This was our Jan 3, 2022 ES chart, illustrating the downside case.
We reiterated the target, called the bounce over, and nailed down the timeline in late March.
Now, as we finally approach ES 3997, it seems that more and more mainstream bulls and trend followers are getting bearish (better late than never.)
The risk, of course, is that excessively bearish sentiment would stoke another bounce and postpone the 3997 tag. VIX has some thoughts about that.
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