Good morning. Less than an hour away from the opening bell and S&P500 futures have climbed back into positive territory.
Initial jobless claims were just released, printing a new 49 year low.
WOW.
Filings for unemployment in the U.S. fall to a fresh 49-year low of 192,000 https://t.co/XxhQoW8gPt pic.twitter.com/igkKSpe8jW
— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) April 18, 2019
You don't have to look very far to find something negative to obsess about. There are, and have been, plenty of reasons not to be long this market. Excuses to sell.
But if you look hard enough, and ignore the incessant bearish articles on the top financial sites, there are plenty of reasons why being long this market isn't such a bad idea.
Today's unemployment report and retail sales are two.
Another recent positive, that is the culmination of some 9+ years of fear mongering.... Greece!
Could it be? Have we seen the last of the Greece Bailout... at least for the next 5-10 years?
Anyone trading the last 10 years has seen the market pull back countless times on Greek Tragedy Headlines.
I was saying it every time we pulled back on Greece headlines.. the market was telling you not to worry longer term.
From early 2015 --->>>
and in reality all that Greece fear has just helped boost financial media ratings and headline clicks.....
and even last year for a few days it was Italy that was going to crush the markets.
again you don't need to look far to find a reason to sell. However the positives of this market for some reason also are the highlights of any bearish article. High debt levels... Dovish Central Banks...
DEBT + Historic low interest rates + Central Banks hell bent on keeping asset prices aloft = continued record highs.
That's the bottom line. As long as the Central Banks remain accommodative asset prices/stocks will remain in grind higher mode.
Which brings us to our current market state.
The VIX is low under 15 and as recently as Monday under 12.
The SP500 is in consolidation mode, with 2900 becoming the new 2800.
It took a bit of time for the market to get away from 2800 and its doing the same thing at this round number. I think the ultimate break will be higher with new record highs coming by may.
SPX:
AS crazy as it sounds, and yes I was crazily sounding this a few months ago when we had just started to make our way off the lows, but the $SPY momentum trigger back at the lows in 2016 led to a massive long term rally. We just has a similar trigger and long term MACD is making an eerily similar cross as well.
Could we be on the cusp of another multi-year rally?
I'm sure you won't hear that from many who follow the market.
The opening bell is coming. I'll leave it at that. One constant about this market has been...
(1) Plenty of excuses to sell
(2) New Record highs
As long as we have #1... we are going to get a lot more of #2
and have a great long holiday weekend!