Last week, the S&P 500 put up its best week of the year, closing above key psychological levels and breaking through bearish technical resistance, with bulls largely inspired by the dovish FOMC meeting minutes. But this year’s market has been news-driven and quite difficult for traders to read. Even our fundamentals-based and quality-oriented quant models have struggled to perform.
Uncertainty about the health of the global economy led investors to flee U.S. equities during Q3, primarily driven by worries about China's growth prospects and the Federal Reserve’s decision to not raise rates. Sure, there are plenty of real and perceived headwinds, but on balance it seems that a recession here at home is not in the cards. And when you consider sentiment and the technical picture, it appears that a continuation of Friday’s bounce is in store.
The Fed’s decision to not raise the fed funds rate at this time was ultimately taken by the market as a no-confidence vote on our economic health, which just added to the fear and uncertainty that was already present. Rather than cheering the decision, market participants took the initial euphoric rally as a selling opportunity, and the proverbial wall of worry grew a bit higher.
For those investors who thought there might be a quick V-bottom recovery in the markets like we saw last October, they have been sorely disappointed. Last week, the Dow Industrials fell -3.2%, the S&P 500 large caps fell -3.4%, the Nasdaq was down -3.0%, and the Russell 2000 small caps dropped -2.3%.From a technical standpoint, most chartists agree that much damage has been done to the charts and the market seems quite vulnerable and likely to retest lows. Market breadth is poor. And from a fundamental standpoint, the list of concerns is long.
The dark veil around China is creating a little too much uncertainty for investors, with the usual fear mongers piling on and sending the vast buy-the-dip crowd running for the sidelines until the smoke clears. Furthermore, Sabrient’s fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings have been flashing near-term defensive signals. The end result is a long overdue capitulation event that has left no market segment unscathed in its mass carnage.
Much ado was made of China’s surprise 3% devaluation of their currency last week. But keep in mind, the yuan is pegged to the dollar, and with the dollar so strong, every major floating currency and commodity is down a lot more than that. Deflation is now a real threat. Then, there is the suddenly resolved issue of Greece’s debt (along with the worry of a domino-like fall of the entire Eurozone).
As a rather uninspiring earnings season starts to wind down, bullish investors eager for a significant catalyst from company reports instead have been left a bit flat-footed and disheartened. With consumer sentiment and retail sales flagging in key overseas markets like Europe and China, global capital continues to flow into the safety of U.S. Treasuries, driving down bond yields despite a supposedly imminent fed funds rate hike.
Even with many of the global issues pushed off the front page, eager bulls found yet another reason to keep the troops in the barracks. The only newsworthy items are related to corporate earnings reports, which have been mixed at best, interspersed with the occasional spectacular report -- primarily from mega-caps like Google (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), or Amazon (AMZN). Some of the bulls have taken their chips off the table until after Labor Day, while others have merely scaled back to scalping some trades. Either way, stocks appear destined to thrash about for the rest of the summer.
We all know the big news stories that have kept both corporate leaders and investors in a semi-state of paralysis. They involve the future of Greece in the Eurozone, China’s growth and stock market stability, and the Federal Reserve’s plan for gradually normalizing the fed funds rate. I noted in my article last week that the technical picture appeared to be firming up for the bulls as the 200-day moving average kicked in with solid support and traders seemed to be doing an orderly retreat-and-retrench rather than panic-selling.
Of course, all eyes have been on Greece in an ongoing saga that, although critical to the Greeks, is mostly just an annoying distraction for global investors -- partly because it has been going on for so many years, with the proverbial can of inevitability continually being kicked down the road, and partly because there can be no winners in this intractable situation.
