Last week saw SPX and Nasdaq's bear market rally finally clip into April and May highs before the week finished notedly, albeit not too terrifyingly, lower.
All along the way, none of the Twitterati or the media cartel has so much as issued a peep about the Federal Reserve's critical Jackson Hole meeting lying in wait at the end of August.
Notably, two of the three Jackson Hole days land on the Thursday and Friday trading days.
Much of the rally was predicated on there being no FOMC this month, which would in theory mean no rate hikes until September. However, with how things have been set up, what do you suppose is going to happen in both the lead up to and during Jackson Hole?
Perhaps what the market endures at Jackson Hole is something like an "unforseen" and "Black Swan" 200 bps rate hike that shocks the markets and sends them in an astonishingly quick descent below the June lows.
Then, everything depends on whether September's FOMC is stimulus and QE again. October could be a critical starting point for a "return to normal" bubble rally or a Bump and Run Reversal.
Either way, the expectation that there's more moon ahead after a 8+ week bear market rally is really not very realistic, or very intelligent. After days of buying, it's time for some selling, because that is how volume is generated.
And for SPX, that means numbers that sound like 40xx and 39xx are likely on their way.
Consider that SPX used to trade in parallel with BTC. On Friday and through the weekend, BTC and Ethereum suffered a 20%+ wipe out and are about to endure more. SPX and Nasdaq are lagging behind in that pattern, and although they won't lose 20% overnight like crypto does, 100-150 point down days on SPX are big losses if you're holding a fat bag of SPY and QQQ.
What to do? You can buy the dip, aiming for a "return to normal" at 4400-4800. But what if this is the quiet fulcrum moment that things have gone from rally to doom and you're catching knives? It's an easy way to incur massive losses and wipe out the gains from the previous run if you were long.
Not sure what to make of it flirting with the "probably Monday" box during Sunday London session before NY open.
Be careful thinking that a bounce/reversal is coming. Monday might just be "bloody."
ノート
The danger of where we're at is really well illustrated on the monthly chart.
It's a meager 500 point drop to June lows. Having a bag full of SPY would really hurt.
ノート
Ironically, JPow delivering an 8 minute speech with "hawkish" narrative but no surprise rate hike may have served as a better catalyst for the next move lower.
Something to consider, price action like _this_:
And we're _still_ trading at a premium in the impulse range from late July to present...