Well known financial news contributor - as well as 38 year veteran of markets - Kenny Polcari has been kind enough to share his most recent thoughts on the market with our readers.
Kenny’s Thoughts Mid-Week
The storm clouds are building, stocks come under assault, Jamie Dimon’s prophecy seemingly is coming true.
Recall what he said: ‘Prepare for an economic hurricane’. Remember that? Remember how his global economist, Marko Kolanovic, challenged him on the very same day saying that ‘we’ don’t think a global recession will happen and inflation will ‘resolve itself on its own’? How’s that working out for you? (Oh, to be a fly on the wall…)
Stocks have not been able to stabilize since mid-August, just ahead of Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, as algos try to decipher what it all means, which I find comical, because all it reveals is that algos weren’t paying attention before the speech. Algos can’t interpret body language, intonation or meaning. So, that rally off the June lows has now failed, and a test of the June lows is now in plain sight.
Monday, I indicated that the short term trendline support at 3996 was a KEY level that needed to be watched. Would it hold when we tested it or not? And while we did not test it on Monday – we did test it yesterday – after not 1 but 3 different additional Fed-heads continued with the theme of a more hawkish Fed. NY’s Johnny Williams, Richmond’s Tommy Barkin and Atlanta’s Raffi Bostic all spoke, and when it failed, the bottom fell out. Here’s why…
Algo’s (again) went into overdrive because of a technical failure, the sell side algos get all worked up while the buy side algos took a step back, not cancelling their interest – just deciding to bid lower in the face of what is starting to feel a bit ‘panicky’.
By the end of the day there was more blood on the street. The Dow had given up another 308 pts or 1%, the S&P down 45 or 1.1%, the Nasdaq lost 135 pts or 1.1%, the Russell lost 27 pts or 1.45% and the Transports gave back 226 pts or 1.6%.
What I find really interesting is that the algos wanted you to believe that it was all good and that Powell wouldn’t ‘grow a pair’ that he would ‘pivot’ and cave, even after Fed-head after Fed-head kept hinting. I mean, how much more did you want them to say? Bullard, Daly, Mester, George, Powell, Evans, Kashkari: every one of them telling you (hinting) at what was to come. Even a former Dallas Fed-head – who resigned his position due to questions about his personal trading account chimed in
– telling us that the Fed needed to be aggressive.
Many were quick to call the bottom and the end of the bear market after one month that showed the CPI had improved by 0.1%. Asset managers that had been sitting on the sidelines with cash rushed to get in, in what appeared to be a FOMO (fear of missing out) move, and that caused many retail traders to jump in as well. Nevermind that we are on the verge of a seasonally volatile time (which I warned you about) but it is accentuated by historic tightening events (and I say events because not
only are we raising rates, but we are shrinking the balance sheet) – something that I don’t think the markets or the algos were paying much attention to, but suddenly they are.
Now what I find really interesting is that there are some out there that ‘remain mixed’ on what Powell’s comments mean for the markets – because they have lost confidence in the Fed’s ability to manage it. Here’s a hint: ‘They completely missed the boat. Inflation is out of control and won’t easily be tame - so get ready for a more aggressive Fed.’
Recall the ‘Sacrifice Ratio’ explanation? How many people will the Fed have to sacrifice to stop the madness? How high will unemployment have to go to make a dent? How deep and long will the recession be? These are now all of the questions that need to be answered and ones that won’t likely be answered anytime soon. Why? Because they don’t know the answer: we are in unchartered (transitory) territory and this is a completely fly by your pants event.
Who is kidding who? They have no clue and that is not a criticism, it’s the reality of the situation. Remember we’ve been doing this for 13 years, holding rates at artificially low levels and stimulating the economy via monetary policy, and now they are stimulating the economy via fiscal policy. So I say again, they don’t know what the answer is or will be.
Source: Quoth the Raven on Zero Hedge
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