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The Morning Look

ByGary Kaltbaum

Stock Market Overview:

U.S. stock futures are down sharply (Dow futures are down over 250 points as of this writing) on Wednesday after oil plunged to an 11-year low and rumors spread that N. Korea conducted a nuclear test overnight. There’s a slew of economic data (below) being released today culminating with the Fed minutes being released at 2pm EST. Keep in mind, these are the minutes from the Fed’s December meeting when the Fed raised rates by a quarter point for the first rate hike since June 2006. Gary has expressed caution and has been telling you about how the market has been getting weaker not stronger over much of 2015. Leadership continues to get more and more “narrow” and most of the market remains in bad shape.

Gary’s Thoughts:  It’s a freaking bear market. Get used to it. In bear markets, surprises happen to the downside. In bear markets, bad news is no longer ignored.  We have told you in recent weeks that the bear market in stocks will become more apparent as the major indices play catch-up with the average stock. We told you we weren’t so worried about the December but were quite worried about January. So far, January sucks…and it was right out of the gate.

We can go on and on but we won’t. All we can tell you is that if this continues, you best not argue with it as most on Wall Street will tell you not to worry. If you want to know how we got here, just go back to Gary K.com and read all the reports of the past few months. This topping process has been classic as sector by sector, stock by stock, the markets internals went south. It’s now just a matter of the major indices catching up…which as we told you, has always happened at this juncture. As the rest of the market tops, relative strength can be seen in Food,drugs,beverages,alcohol,household products,water utilities, guns and defense as everyone likes a good war. These areas are screaming…and we mean SCREAMING RECESSION. The market is a lot smarter than all of us including Janet and the Fed who waited years to raise rates into this. Almost too funny…but is actually scary.

 

 

 

Economic Data:

  • MBA Mortgage Applications 7:00 AM ET
  • ADP Employment Report 8:15 AM ET
  • International Trade 8:30 AM ET
  • Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index 8:30 AM ET
  • PMI Services Index 9:45 AM ET
  • Factory Orders 10:00 AM ET
  • ISM Non-Mfg Index 10:00 AM ET
  • EIA Petroleum Status Report 10:30 AM ET
  • FOMC Minutes 2:00 PM ET

Highlights Of The Day:

    • N. Korea conducted a Nuclear Test overnight
      Gary’s Thoughts: Not sure I believe this jsut yet but how did that Clinton agreement go? How about Obama’s agreement with Iran?
    • Deutsche Bank cuts U.S. GDP forecasts
      Gary’s Thoughts: DUH!
    • Apple Cuts IPhone Production by 30%: Nikkei
      Gary’s Thoughts: 
    • $3.8 trillion in M&A spending makes last year a record
      Gary’s Thoughts: Sign of a top.
    • Twitter Considers Higher Character Limit for Tweets
      Gary’s Thoughts: Don’t screw with a decent idea.