A Bull Market Until Proven Otherwise

Good Monday morning and welcome back to the land of blinking screens. Global growth, the Trump/Russia situation, oil, the upcoming Fed meeting, and the greenback are in focus to start the week.

On the growth front, the euro area Markit PMI fell to 55.8 in July, which is the weakest reading in six months. Next up, the IMF contends that the world will rely less on the United States to drive global growth in the coming years, cut its forecast for U.K. growth, and increased growth estimates for Japan and the euro area.

Next up, major oil producing countries are meeting in Russia and so far at least, there are no major changes/announcements relating to supply anticipated.

As for the Fed, Janet Yellen’s merry band of bankers meets again this week. While just about everybody agrees that the Yellen & Co. won’t take any action, the meeting, as usual, will be all about the post-meeting statement versus market expectations. Markets are looking for the Fed to officially embrace the stance Yellen took in her recent Congressional testimony.

Finally, since it’s the start of a new week, let’s get to our objective review the key market models and indicators and see where things stand. To review, the primary goal of this weekly exercise is to remove any subjective notions I might have in an effort to stay in line with what “is” happening in the markets.

The State of the Trend

We start each week with a look at the “state of the trend.” These indicators are designed to give us a feel for the overall health of the current short- and intermediate-term trend models.