E Market Briefing For Thursday, Oct. 19

It’s not a ‘Rodney Dangerfield’ market – as it gets too much respect. Very smart analysts sum it up by saying ‘hallelujah’ or even calling it the ‘greatest bull market ever’.

That’s the case ‘even if’ the market holds up and doesn’t break. However in an internal way the market has been correcting rotationally; and it’s still the basic underlying theme at the moment (look at the Oscillators and A/D line).

This matters, as aside an ‘event’ (which we expected would ultimately occur for IBM’s transition as discussed last night and occasionally for two years as they shifted to transactional and cloud-based App or program development) like IBM (which is all that drove Wednesday); or perhaps biotech since one key new cancer treatment was announced late today (but highly expensive so questionable whether insurance will pay); but the key was that the newer ‘classes’ of drugs are getting approved, so that helps the sector overall.

Bottom line: Lots of the future has been discounted, ‘even if’ you get tax reform. Now I’m the guy who said this market heavily depended on getting tax cuts and keeping a global recovery underway.

It’s a reason I called (and do call) for a ‘hit’ that is most likely a correction not a catastrophe that former bears were calling for (there are no more bears so that’s a bearish consideration too of course). What’s happened is they lever to keep this going, rather than talk about leverage ‘after’ you get rate hikes, which is when it usually occurs (and results in an inverted yield curve, etc.).

Now I do believe that while they are searching for ‘votes’ in Congress; there was a mistake made by Treasury Secretary Mnuchin ‘tying’ stock market advances in the future to getting ‘tax reform’. I actually agree with that! But I just don’t think he should say it. That makes it looking like Government that takes the market ‘hostage’ to a political decision, rather than the argument that the market advance is based on actual earnings and business gains.

In sum: hopefully you understand my cynicism about Government officials claiming ‘ownership’ of the stock market advance, even if the extension has (it was my forecast) come about because of Trump’s election (mostly policy not simply him). Now they’re basically saying if Congress doesn’t give us tax cuts promptly, the market ‘will’ tank (crash?). Again I agree; but headwinds are created beyond those that already existed by saying that. Now pundits are crowing that the market rallied ‘anyway’ in the face of such statements.