Waiting on the Fed

Monday’s stock market was another dull affair waiting for the Fed’s announcement on Tuesday. The news on Tuesday should provide some spark to trading and we are waiting for the market’s reaction. The stock market has been trying to ascertain the Fed’s intentions with regard to the completion of the interest rate hikes over the past couple of years. The market thinks that the Fed will need to stop soon and therefore thinks that prices will have to go up when the decision is made, and announced.

In order to fully grasp what the market thinks, it is important to view some of the other markets and their views on the Fed’s possible termination of hikes. The dollar is the primary reason for the interest rate hikes in the first place and it will suffer if the perception is that future rate hikes are not in the cards. The beneficiary of an easier Fed would have to be the precious metals and they did have a good day on Monday. Bonds are scared to try to figure out what the Fed is doing.

With the market waiting for the Fed, we must wait also. Monday’s trading gave us little information about future prices. We say, Be Careful out there.

[Editor’s note: The Update may not be published very regularly over the next two weeks. There will definitely be an Update on Tuesday evening after the Fed’s announcement but after that the author’s schedule is a bit unpredictable. Starting on April 8th, the Update will be back to a normal schedule, posting the evening before any trading day.]

Dow Industrials: 11,250.11 -29.86
RYVNX: 18.76
RYAIX: 22.08
TLT: 88.76
BEGBX: 13.00