Good evening StockBandits!
We don’t always get a big spike on Fed days, even the highly-anticipated ones, but today we sure did. As the announcement hit, stocks were already seeing a modest lift off their early-afternoon lows but they quickly accelerated higher in response. The S&P 500 tacked on a quick 1% in under 10 minutes as cash rushed into the market. Once the initial spike cooled off, we saw attempts at pullbacks get immediately met with more buying. We had a minor dip into the bell, but overall the gains were solid.
The RUT was able to make a decisive new high today on the heels of Tuesday’s touch of 1243.33. The S&P reclaimed 2093, ending the day just 20 points from its all-time high of 2119. The NAZ edged back above 5000 briefly, but ended the day at 4982, just 0.5% from its 52-week high. And the DJIA nearly tagged 18100, only to finish a few points shy of it. Overall, it was a strong day and the bulls are so far doing a nice job of defending the short-term pullback lows with the multi-day recoveries we’re seeing.
I never have CNBC on anymore during the trading day the way I used to, but on days like this as you tune in for scheduled FOMC news, it’s easy to be reminded of something important. That is that the financial media would have you believe that making smart moves in the market is all about things like monetary policy. However, in reality we cannot move higher until we clear recent resistance areas and leave the recent trading range in the rearview mirror. The bottom line is that it’s best to resist the urge to fixate on the econ news and stick with the charts. If the news flow is truly positive, it’ll show in the charts. If it’s meaningless, we’ll continue the lateral movement.
Let’s get to the charts.
Bullish Watch (click for charts)
Bearish Watch (click for charts)
Trade Like A Bandit!
Jeff
