Technical Tuesday – Indexes Stuck in a Danger Zone

Want to make a quick $10,000?

S&P 500 Futures (/ES) pay $50 per point and we're below the 50-day moving average at 4,416 – so that would be the stop line and 4,320 is the strong bounce line and, failing that, we have no support at all until the weak bounce line at 4,180 – 200 points below where we are this morning (4,385).  If we call 4,400 the stop line – then we risk losing $50 x 15 points = $750 against the potential gain of $10,000 if the S&P falls back to where we were a month ago.

We still have the war, we still have Covid, the Fed is still raising rates because we still have inflation – am I missing something?  In fact, speaking of the Fed, St Louis President, James Bullard just said this morning that his target rate for THIS YEAR is 3.5%, not 2.5%.  

Bullard cited the Taylor rule, a suggestion developed by Stanford College’s John Taylor that makes use of inflation, the unemployment fee and an estimate of the impartial rate of interest — a fee neither contractionary nor expansionary — to give his estimate.  “I believe it behooves us to get to that stage by the tip of the year,” Bullard mentioned.  This is clearly an indication that Bullard sees no chance that 0.25% rate hikes are going to put even a mild dent in inflation – as evidenced by Consumers putting inflation on their charge cards last month.
There was a brief, shiny moment, at the beginning of this month, when the Fed and the Leading Economorons all agreed that Q1 GDP was growing at 1% but there's no money in agreeing with the Fed so the Economorons have raised their guidance to 2.5% for Q1 and now they get to be interviewed by the Financial Media to explain what it is they see that the people who actually use the data to report the official number do not.  

We get the actual Q1 GDP next Thursday morning – so tune in for that market-mover and on Tuesday we get Durable Goods, Consumer Confidence and New Home Sales – key components in the GDP.  Tomorrow we get Existing Home Sales but they are likely to…

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