Four(ish) hours of downside and only 1 hour to recover all of the losses. What inflation? What rising interest rates? Debt ceiling….? Still rangebound, but whatever. It felt bullish…

Markets continue to do their sideways dance as the S&P 500 traded in another tight range today (33bps). With a debt ceiling “conversation” between the White House and Kevin McCarthy expected to start just after the close, and no new news to result, traders were once again in no mood to take a macro view of the indexes. Adding to that lackluster mood was another session of little economic news. The one datapoint out was the NFIB Small Business Optimism, which dropped to 89 versus the previous 90…

A close friend of mine threw a party to celebrate his birthday over the weekend. That’s all well and good; one should celebrate themselves. The issue lies with the starting time – the host had the temerity to kick things off at 10pm. Egregious and unacceptable. Much like the attendees on Sunday and likely Monday (the 1-day recovery ship sailed long ago..), the market felt a bit tired today, volumes and volatility both lacking. Markets are traipsing into a bit of a new frontier, with all signs p…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSr-VWc_7WQ

The print was barely dry post FOMC yesterday when regional bank PacWest (PACW -50.6%) decided to announce they are looking at strategic options. Those words these days equal almost certain termination in the banking sector, and obviously dampens investor sentiment. To add to the misery, headlines that TD (TD +95bps) and First Horizon (FHN -33.1%) called off their merger, and a FT report that Western Alliance (WAL -38.4%) was also seeking strategic options (“vehemently” denied by WAL), pushed in…

The market is in a delicate position, and there is no smoking gun or white knight that can grace the airwaves in one afternoon and sweep us to the promise land overnight. I say this also with the recognition that the S&P is +6.5% YTD and the Nasdaq +15%. However, this is not a straight-line-up market and we are imbedded within a slow, gradual, and arduous process whereby we are navigating our way out of exceptionally high inflation that is the result of a very prolonged period of zero interest…

Things got a little bit more hair-raising today with the VIX +10.3% and KRE, the regional banking ETF, trading down -6.3% in what looked like a bit of a panic move. PacWest (-28%), Western Alliance (-15%) and Zion’s (-11%) all tanked, which proved that the cleanup of FRC did not “stabilize the system” as Jamie Dimon had promised. It seems investors are focused on funding costs rising and the regulatory environment only getting more difficult from here, rather than the rescue mission. To further…

First day of May! What did you expect? Elevated trading volumes, endless news feed and the S&P flying through 4200 on a day where most of the European and Asian markets were closed. Nope! Instead, we got exactly what we knew was coming, low volumes and major US indexes little changed. On the bright side, the S&P 500 futures briefly broke above 4200 during the afternoon session for the first time since February, so we have that going for us. A rainy weekend here in the Northeastern US set the th…

We are perpetually stuck in a low volume, low volatility environment (the Vix made a fresh multi-year low today), with major indices in a range, and everything dictated by mega cap tech. The SPX is stuck between 3800-4200 stillll, the 10yr is stuck between 3.32-3.65%, $ now above Feb lows and oil is doing nothing much (it did have a 2.6% pop today, but still finished the week with a loss). The question is – what will be the driver to break us out to the upside above that seemingly Teflon 4200 l…

Does it ever feel like we’ve been here before? Well, spoiler alert- we have! Just 2 days ago, in fact, and a few times earlier this month, and back in Feb, and… While recessionary worries, debt ceiling concerns, and a faltering FRC (+8.8%) have overshadowed an earnings season kicking into full gear, don’t blink because TECH has come to save the day! For today, anyhow. and we’ll see about tomorrow. The terrible-breadth-80%-double-down-days we just endured are now in the rear-view mirror, and…