Which Way Wednesday – Fed Edition

To taper or not to taper?

That is the question the Fed will answer today, in the second to last meeting of 2021 (Dec 15th is last), so it's possible they will kick the can down the road again as GDP was a disappointing 2% but the market is at record highs and inflation is not only NOT transitory, but it's accelerating.  

During his last meeting with Congress, Elizabeth Warren made it very clear to Jerome Powell that she was coming for his job if he didn't cut the crap and start doing something that favored the savers instead of the bankers.  Just how much money would you be making if you could borrow people's money (which is what a bank does when you make a deposit) for 0.5% and then leverage it 10 TIMES (thank you Fed) and lend it to others at 3% (mortgage rates) KNOWING that the Government will bail you out if the mortgages fail?   So that's 10x 3% is 30% and 10 x 0.5% (origination fees) is 5% is 35% back on their 0.5% loans.  No wonder banks have record profits.

Speaking of record profits – our Oil (/CL) shorts just hit $82 for a $5,680 gain and $82 is certainly going to be bouncy and, since we fell from $85 (not quite), per our fabulous 5% Rule™: 20% of a $3 fall is 0.60 so $82.60 is going to be a weak bounce and $83.20 is the strong bounce line and, with inventories coming at 10:30 – it's not worth risking those gains.  

The API Report showed a 2M barrel build in Oil and tomorrow, OPEC+ is expected to follow through with a scheduled 400,000 barrel/day increase in production – despite the lackluster demand.  Oil shouldn't be at $80, let alone $85 and I still think we see the $70s again in the next week or two.  After that, they'll bump us for Thanksgiving but then we can short it again.  We set these shorting lines in last week's Live Trading Webinar (replay available here).  There will be another one for our Members at 1pm, EST today where we'll have a…

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