What's Eating the Market Again Today?

Yesterday I followed up on the morning note with what appeared to be the obvious main contributor to the then stock market's pain. I did so by copying and pasting from the original note. I'll do that again here, and highlight in red what is presumably bothering equities today.

"You see, the market these days sees things in a very narrow time window. And, surely, if "it" looks out just to mid-year, it fully well knows that, say, March-on, year-on-year inflation prints should come notably off the boil.

For example, last January CPI was up 1.4%, by March it was up 2.6%, by April 4.2%, by May 5.0% and by June 5.4%. So, barring an even huger ramp up in the rate of price increases than we've seen of late, headline CPI is set to moderate going forward.

And, one might expect, barring oodles of other risks -- geopolitics, mid-term election angst, the Fed tightening policy (and tighten they will [till they crack the markets]) amid weakening data, crazy high tech-sector valuations, and so on -- hitting the tape, that stocks will have a decent go of it as the reported inflation numbers abate a bit.

That said, one should in no way take those oodles of other risks the least bit lightly!"

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned today that Russia could take offensive military action inside Ukraine as early as next week. 

Here's from my entry to our internal research thread last Saturday:

"FYI to the team. Just listened to our premium geopolitical research source's latest client webcast. They now place 75% odds that Russia invades Ukraine (up from 50%) -- given the US's written rejection of their demands -- at any moment. Interestingly, they dismiss the notion that Putin will wait till the Beijing Winter Olympics are over. I'm thinking he'll wait.

In any event, while they don't anticipate an all-in attack, they expect something nevertheless meaningful as Putin virtually has to (well, 75% chance) advance at this point.

Highly likely that this would be a, albeit brief if the incursion isn't too deep, global risk-off event..."

I'm personally not remotely making a prediction here, just assessing conditions through the lens of folks who do geopolitics for a living... At this point I wouldn't be surprised either way; military action or 11th-hour successful negotiations...

Again, I'd instruct both short-term bulls and bears to not hold their breath right here (this market is bound to remain uber volatile, in both directions). I'd instruct portfolio managers to actively manage the risk of something potentially big to the downside going forward...

And, frankly, folks, if the latest price action, in and of itself, has you rattled, know that the lack of volatility you perhaps grew accustomed to throughout 2021 was the exception, not remotely the rule!