Post-Fed Confusion: To Rally or Not to Rally – The Market Breadth

confusion (credit: Confused Yet? by Random Retail on Flickr)

Stock Market Commentary: The latest jobs report came on the heels of another post-Fed downer. The U.S. added 261,000 jobs but the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.6% to 3.7%. At the open, the market seemed to celebrate the potential implications for looser monetary policy despite the microscopic change in the unemployment rate. China delivered … Read more

The Fed Frowns At the Latest Bear Market Breakthrough – The Market Breadth

Fed frowns at latest bear market rally

Stock Market Commentary: I continue to underestimate just how much these bear market rallies price in misplaced optimism over monetary policy from the Fed. Although Chair Jerome Powell remained overall consistent with the Fed’s hawkish, inflation-fighting message, the stock market plunged after an initial post-release surge. Accordingly, the latest bear market breakthrough came to an … Read more

Ever Higher Mortgage Rates, More Market Pressures – Housing Market Review

Ever Higher Mortgage Rates, More Market Pressures (credit: House collapse by PurpleLorikeet from Flickr)

Housing Market Intro and Summary In my last Housing Market Review, I described the dynamics of a housing market trying to wait out this cycle of rising rates. Since then, ever higher mortgage rates continued their relentless and sharp uptrend. Accordingly, the pressures on the housing market simply increased further. The marks of a deepening … Read more

A Bear Market Breakthrough for the S&P 500 – The Market Breadth

bear market breakthrough (Credit: Breakthrough by -RobW- from Flickr)

Stock Market Commentary: The Q3 2022 U.S. GDP report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis undermined this year’s strident claims that the economy overall is already in recession. Q3 GDP grew 2.6% largely thanks to a 2.8% growth in personal expenditures for services (one more validation of the relatively strong jobs market) and thanks to … Read more

The Market’s Ceiling Moves From Resistance to Support – The Market Breadth

resistance to support (Credit: Girls on trampolines by Bryan Peters on Flickr)

Stock Market Commentary: What was resistance for over two months is slowly becoming support for the stock market. The bullish trading action of the last week created an important breakout that confirmed the bottoming action from the previous week’s bullish engulfing pattern. While the stock market may continue to chase its tail before fighting its … Read more