Is the Fed Done With Hikes?

Seeing the Fed minutes caused a big up move in the middle of the day.  The Fed seems determined to slow these rate hikes down based on the minutes that were released today.  In the grand scheme of things, we think that the rally in stocks over the past several weeks to have been related to this ultimate decision to stop the rate hikes soon.  The market doesn’t really have a big problem with rates where they are because they are still very low.  Longer term rates have been relatively stable when compared to the short end of the curve where the Fed has some juice.  

The precious metals have also seemed to be anticipating a slowing the interest hikes.  This is for a much more sinister reason, higher inflation.  The precious metals can take flight in the current situation because rates are Too low for the current rate of inflation so precious metals think inflation will continue to percolate.  

Today’s action in the stock market seems too perfect.  The momentum indicators have been weak relative the last highs so the market is certainly overbought, and that includes one of our favorite indicators, the 5 day upside volume, which is over 1,000,000 shares again.  The number of stocks trading at new annual lows has been persistently high during this period too while the number of new highs has been subdued.  Today’s volume was decent but not great.  

We are leaving you with a few days to forget about the market.  Tomorrow will be nothing short of boring and Friday will be a quiet day with light volume due to the shortened trading session.  We don’t plan to post until Sunday evening unless something very unusual occurs tomorrow.  

I bid you a Happy Thanksgiving however you decide to spend it.  Those of you who still read these posts, I am thankful you do.  

Dow Industrials:10,871.43  +51.15   (Unbelievble)
RYVNX:  18.52
TLT:  90.53
BGEIX:  14.09