Being the second Friday this year that happens to fall on the 13th of the month may not bear much significance. The fact that the doomsday theorists who believe that today is the day Planet X will make a move on Earth may bear even less.
However, according to a study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, even if you don’t believe in superstitions they can still have an impact.
Today we’ll keep a close eye on Donald Trump’s speech regarding the future of the Iran Nuclear program. Though Trump has expressed his disdain for the deal that was struck by his predecessor he is largely expected to uphold the agreement.
As wildfires rage throughout California and much of Mexico and the Carribean islands are still in shambles following multiple horrific hurricanes and earthquakes the world and the markets could certainly use a bit of calm.
Market Overview
Wall Street’s focus is quickly shifting from the Fed to earnings. The FOMC minutes released on Wednesday failed to provide investors with any sort of certainty regarding the fate of a rate hike in December. In fact, it showed that the Fed is quite confused about the lack of inflation and torn over how to proceed. Yesterday some of the big banks released their earnings. Although the profits were largely better than forecasted financial stocks did end up declining and taking the rest of the market with them.
For example, JP Morgan shares fell 0.9% even though earnings and revenue growth came out good and shares in Citigroup tumbled 3.4% because even though they did better than analysts expected their return on equity was much worse than other banks.
On the long term though this loss is barely even noticeable. Looking at the chart of the S&P 500the technical setup does seem prepared to break into new record territory above 2,555 points. Though I usually prefer not to apply technical analysis to a stock index, in this case, the rising support line (yellow) meeting a horizontal “psychological” resistance (blue) cannot be ignored.
Central Banks Still Underpin
Though the focus of investors may shift from time to time we need to always keep in mind who is running the show. Those of you who have been reading my updates for a while know very well who I’m talking about. Over the past 9 years, Central Banks have been the main buyer of financial assets and are the main driver of market activity. However, this trend is quickly changing behind the scenes.
The European Central Bank is currently printing €60 Billion per month to support the market but according to a report out this morning, they’re now considering to cut that amount in half as of January. This move, if it happens, will be largely in line with other central banks who are all trying to “normalize” their monetary policy to keep from flooding the world with cash.
(Some) Cryptos Fly
A spectacular display is now happening in the crypto-market. Yesterday morning Bitcoin popped above the previous highest level of $5000 a coin and didn’t slow down until surpassing a breathtaking height of $5,800.
Unlike the moves that we saw previously where all cryptos moved in sync, alternative investors are now differentiating between different coins and there is a distinct flight to quality.
Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin is up 13% and Litecoin has risen 11%. Ethereum yet again has shown up to the party fashionably late and just within the last two hours has risen more than 10%.
Of course, I wouldn’t want to say anything to jinx it at this point but the value of all cryptos now stands just $3.8 Billion short of it’s all time high, which was marked on September 2nd.
As always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or feedback, or if you need any assistance in your portfolio. Wishing you an amazing weekend.
