The S&P 500 closed at a new high for the year after Monday's session. Gold, meanwhile, was down, a bit unusual in an environment where dollar strength or weakness is driving most of the action of both stocks and commodities.
There are still plenty of warning alarms going off. You can't raise interest rates the way Jay Powell has and not end up with a correction or a crash or something. Those chickens will come home to roost at some point. It's just a matter of when and how many.
There are rumors of a new disease on the way, another 2020-style pandemic. There are also rumors of other catastrophes, things like cyber attacks. I don't know how much credence to give those rumors, if any, but I know that a Presidential election year is a good time for something crazy to happen. Just as the stock market crashed in March of 2020, so might it do the same in 2024. And, as in 2020, there might be a nice buying opportunity when everyone panics and drives prices down to highly discounted levels. I missed the great buying opportunity of 2009 due to my own fear; I promised myself I would never make that mistake again.
As things currently stand, the market is making new highs, and that's a bullish signal. It's also overbought, though, according to oscillators like the RSI, and the MACD has turned slightly downward in what is usually considered a bearish signal.
I think the tiebreaker here is the matter of gaps. The sessions gapped up several times in recent weeks, and those gaps have yet to be filled. I think the market wants to consolidate recent gains, and I think it will, but I also think fundamentals and election-motivated media hysteria in the first quarter of 2024 might drive it down further than it currently wants to go.
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