This Morning's Log Entry

This morning's log entry only reflects my view of the short-term setup. For a deeper dive, and insight into what guides our allocation decisions, be sure to watch my latest video commentary (if you haven't already):

4/17/19 Wednesday

U.S. equity futures traded higher right into the open, then, just a few minutes in, the major averages fell into negative territory. While the day is still very young (could see stocks rally back), you’d think that bullish China data overnight, strong corporate earnings reports in the U.S. thus far (although not quite as across-the-board strong this morning vs yesterday), and all of the other near-term bullish signals I’ve highlighted of late would have the market at least testing the September high.

As I suggested over the weekend, it makes sense to me that the market would stall at that (Sept) level; perhaps the stall is occurring just below.

This short-term sideways action speaks to the headline angst that is clearly prevalent among traders.

While the technicals suggest an upside breakout is in order, and the fundamentals certainly aren’t in the way of that possibility, the risk of a policy blunder (on the international trade front) is huge. I’m not sure that the powers-that-be on the U.S. side of the trade negotiating table realize that they’ve pushed the tariff tactic to its limit. If they go deeper (i.e., along with leaving China tariffs as is, if they approach Japan and the EU in the same vein) they’ll come to that realization (per the action in stocks) very quickly.