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Weekly Market Review
This shortened holiday week ended up being another losing one, held down by the same issues that beat down price action last week. There’s a lingering sense that the market was due for consolidation and a growing idea that the Fed will keep rates higher for longer.
Fed concerns were the focus midweek when the FOMC minutes for the February 1st meeting were released. They weren’t aggressively hawkish or dovish, their default position continues to be a rate-hike position.
Markets are aware that many of the data releases since the last FOMC meeting are not likely to change the Fed’s mindset. A stronger than expected January employment report, the stronger than expected ISM Services PMI, the January CPI and PPI reports, all capped off by this week’s stronger than expected core PCE, which is the Fed’s preferred inflation measurement.
After the hot PCE reading on Friday, St. Louis Fed President Bullard said that “it appears that the Fed may be able to disinflate in an orderly manner and achieve a soft landing”.
Prior to that, there was some movement higher on Thursday, following NVIDIA’s ($NVDA) earnings and positive guidance. However, the market primarily had downside bias this week and took out its 50-day moving average before testing the 200-day average.
The Treasury market was boosted off of the price action in equities this week, creating tough competition for returns from stocks. The 2-year note rose to 4.78% and the 10 year note rose to 3.95%. The dollar index also rose this week by 1.4%.
None of the 11 S&P sectors made gains this week. Energy was close at -0.04% while consumer discretionary and real estate were hit the hardest will losses over -4%.
Below are summaries of daily price action throughout the week:
- Tuesday
- The week started lower on increasing geopolitical tensions and continued money being taken off of the table following last month’s rally for a close under 4,000.
- News reports state that China’s President Xi Jinping may go to Moscow in April or May to meet with Putin and encourage peace talks, a view that seems to run counter to the assumed supportive relationship between Xi and Putin
- Disappointing guidance came from Home Depot ($HD) and Walmart ($WMT) and helped push consumer discretionaries down to last place.
- The January Existing Home Sales fell -0.7% to 4 million (consensus 4.12). Key takeaway is that sales are still under pressure of high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty. This keeps homes on the market for longer and may cause a moderation in median prices over time.
- Wednesday
- The day started on a positive note, but moves were modest as the market waited for the release of FOMC minutes.
- The FOMC minutes indicated that “more evidence of progress across a broader range of prices would be required to be confident that inflation was on a sustained downward path.” A number of members also wanted raise rate by 50 points at the meeting
- .Immediately when the minutes were released, price action in the market whipsawed before settling into a slow decline
- Thursday
- This day was a more upbeat day, breaking a 4 day losing streak on $SPY following the earnings and good guidance from NVIDIA.
- Prices got pushed down as other disappointing earnings came out ($EBAY, $DG, and $DPZ are some names that come to mind in that regard). The key takeaway was that consumers are slowing their discretionary spending causing slower growth and further cuts to earnings estimates in the sector, all while the Fed looks intent to raise rates higher.
- Downside pushed the S&P below the 4,000 level and its 50 day SMA. Buyers stepped in and finished the session with decent gains.
- Initial Jobless Claims declined to 192k (consensus 200k) and continuing claims decreased to 1.654M. The low levels of initial claims contribute to expectations for the Fed keeping rates higher longer.
- The second Q4 2022 GDP estimate showed a downward revision to 2.7% (consensus 2.9%). The drive down was moved by less personal spending which was partially offset by an increase in non-residential investment. This could be an off-putting mix for the Fed. Growth and inflation is still running hot, one of them must give.
- Friday
- The week ended with board-based selling following the hotter than expected PCE reading.
- The Core-PCE price index rose 4.7% year-over-year versus 4.6% in December. Real disposable income was up 1.4% month-over-month and personal savings rate increased to 4.7%, indicating that consumers can keep spending.
- The key was that the report showed inflation, not disinflation, and good spending potential which can keep the economy running above potential. That combo causes concerns about inflation being sticky and prompting the Fed to stick to tightening for harder and longer than expected.
- The S&P closed below its 50 day SMA and tested its 200 day SMA, recovering a bit from the lows of the day before close.
Dividend Dollars’ Outlook & Opinion
That’s it for the recap. Now for my opinion!
This week was another week of consolidation and modest losses that we have been discussing in this outlook section for 3 editions now.
This was a light week in terms of quantity of economic data, however, the few releases we did have were heavy hitters. The Core PCE reading confirmed that the inflation moderation which began in June of last year has mostly leveled off, and at a level that is much higher than the Fed would like. Pair that with the fifth straight week of initial jobless claims under 200k, and you can see that the labor market is strong and able to withstand further tightening.
Earnings continued this week with 55 S&P 500 participants reporting. 44 of them beat EPS expectations. Overall, 98% of the S&P stocks have reported. Below so far are the aggregate beat rates this quarter compared to prior quarters. These figures are tracked using MarketBeat.
Now moving on to technicals. Last week pointed to slightly bearish with high volatility, and that was what we got! Within a month after the SPX broke through the long-term downtrend (red channel), 4,100 level (top green line), and hit a technical golden cross, did it struggle to keep strength. SPX broke through support at the 50 day SMA on Friday, and has the 200 and 100 day SMA not far under it for support and are converging with the downtrend. Who knows if these will hold, but they should at least slow the downtrend.
Other metrics have shifted moderately bullish. VIX put OI grew more than call OI, SPX call OI grew more than puts, and call OI for major ETFS also grew more than puts for the week, a moderately bullish change. However, the Vix volume put to call ratio moved from neutral to moderately bearish this week at 0.34. SPX volume put to call ratio looks neutral.
Overall, technical have deteriorated and inflation is not moderating. With earnings season basically over, three weeks till the next inflation report, four weeks till the next rate hike, the market may move on news headlines and Fed speak more than usual in the near term.
Technicals and inflation look we move down, a number of metrics have improved and look like we move up, and major economic releases are a few weeks out. Short term time frame looks to be volatile and set up for an oversold bounce before chop and downtrend continues. With that said, I’m neutral for next week and could see the market being moderately down or up. This is one of those weird weeks looking forward where all this analysis may not really help!
That’s it for my recap! If you would like to see how I am building my dividend portfolio using my predictions/strategy written here, you can read about my buys in my weekly portfolio update on this link.
And if you like updates like this, follow my Twitter or my CommonStock page where I post updates on the economic data throughout the week.
Regards,
Dividend Dollars