Good afternoon. The bad news is my snow blower broke. The good news is I found this out after my new neighbor had already cleared my driveway with his.
Meanwhile, our recently rescued pup — Ollie — seems to look good in the snow (perhaps never seen before, dunno) but has not yet taken kindly to it and the process of getting to know one another and our surroundings continues!
That in mind, I’ve taken the liberty to compile a few resources from the week that just was and thought I’d share a few observations for the long snow-filled weekend ahead.
Welp, so much for NFP precaps and victory laps on this weekends SELLSIDE OBSERVATIONS (and in the days just ahead of us all) as CNBC offering up another data scapegoat in the case next weeks NFP (Friday) comes in ‘light’,
CNBC: White House warns that January’s omicron spike could weigh on next week’s jobs data
Not usually a fan of ONLY reading h’lines but — in this case, forgive me if I didn’t skim for devils in the details … I think the point here is obvious. HOPE = strategy, don’t worry, this bit of weakness will be … wait for it … TRANSITORY.
This begs the question, what do they know and when did they learn it? NFP survey week claims WERE on the light side so it’s prolly just and educated/academic guess.
In as far as the week that just was, a decent recap from ZH:
ZH: S&P Suffers Worst Start To A Year Since 1939 As Yield Curve Yells 'Recession'
Before we start, let's make this clear right from the start - despite today's panic-buying, this is the worst start to a year for the S&P 500 since 1939 (and on course for its worst January ever)...
Nasdaq is down 5 straight weeks (16% from its highs) - the longest losing streak since 2012 - while Small Caps are down 22% from their highs (in a bear market)...
On TO this weekends SELLSIDE OBSERVATIONSwhere you’ll NFP precaps (and excuses galore surrounding OMI — see CNBC above — and higher INFLATION, YIELD f’casts all around.
Good luck finding someone recommend anything other than a flattener (or simply standing aside). Have a POINT AND CLICK up / through ahead of this afternoons NFL games and enjoy
Meanwhile, HOPE as a strategy as one technical analyst suggests,
AllStarCharts: Living On A Prayer
It's much better living for stock market bulls if we're above those October lows.
Otherwise, I think you're just living on a prayer.
And why the October lows?
That's the last line of defense for the world's most important Indexes…
… But it's those October lows that we're focused on. Notice how the Nasdaq, as much as it tried to fight back throughout the week, is still stuck below:
I feel much more comfortable putting on long positions in the stock market if the indexes are above those October lows…
With technicals in mind, some updated CoT POSITIONS comments,
Finally, a few a/v selections **IF** you have time and/or want to appear busy so you don’t have to go out and shovel, which I’d highly recommend,
First and foremost for the RATES CROWD, BMOs weekend ‘podcast’ latest,
Punxsutawney Phil's Big Day Our marmot about town, Punxsutawney Phil, is also known colloquially as 'the seer of seers' and 'prognosticator of all prognosticators'. Although given that he has now predicted six more weeks of winter 106 times and the early arrival of spring just 20 times with an accuracy of about 39%, perhaps it's time for a rebranding to something like 'Mr. Maybe'. Next week the February refunding announcement certainly falls on Phil's big day. While we'd like to hope the market is a better forecaster of the Treasury Department's borrowing habits than Phil is of the weather... like they say in western Pennsylvania "39 percent of the time, it works every time." For those who might be under the impression that Bill Murray invented Groundhog Day in 1993.. Well, you're not alone.
Macro horizons episode 156: "All Fed, No Fade" is now available. The team discusses the FOMC meeting and the hawkish tone struck by Powell that has translated to over 100 bp of policy tightening quickly being reflected by the market. Issuance will also contribute to the direction of yields as the refunding announcement approaches, and with auction sizes set to be trimmed once again, we are reminded of the sage market wisdom, 'no such thing as a bad bond, just a bad price.'
ALSO worth checking out is a video recap of LAST WEEKEND RUMPUS via BBG interview with GMO, Calling a Super Bubble: Front Row With Jeremy Grantham
Next up EPBs Eric Basmajian recently (24th JAN) … recorded another Quarterly Outlook video for 2022 with economist and Co-Founder of AIM Research, Grant Collins. Grant is trained in Applied Economics and brings a unique perspective to analyzing the economy and markets. We cover inflation, the volatility in asset prices, monetary policy & more. If you have some free time on this snowy weekend, you can watch our conversation on YouTube by clicking here.
Also for some insights from a FedGuy (literally, that’s what he’s called himself on twitter except, apparently 11 other guys beat Joe Wang to it as he’s @FedGuy12) and was on with MarketHuddle this weekend,
