Greece Elections Puts Fed On Deck.....
Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012 Jun 17, 2012 - 02:31 AM GMTBy: Jack_Steiman
Those are two nice little events we can all go through together over the next several days. We will start, with the Greece elections over the weekend that will have a real impact on the markets. The market is clearly telling us it thinks, and believes, the party that wins will be the one that has promised to stay in the Euro-zone and not create chaos. If the party that gets in is the one that creates market uncertainty, the market will be very unhappy come Monday morning, but the opposite is true if the right party gets elected. Monday morning will have fireworks for sure.
Then, immediately after that, the attention gets turned to the Mr. Bernanke, and what he has to say about our economy on Wednesday. In addition, folks will want to hear more on what he plans to do, or not do, about another quantitative easing program that he hinted at on Thursday. He will need to elaborate further on what, and when he plans to implement it. It's quite obvious to the masses by now that he will do another program. The market seems to be thirsting for it now instead of later on. If he hints at deep delays on it, I think the market won't be very happy come Wednesday afternoon. So much is going to happen between this evening and Wednesday afternoon, it will make your head spin, and probably the market will spin as well. The risk is high for both sides, so be aware of that. I get the feeling the news out of Greece this weekend will be more market favorable than not, although there's no way to know that for sure.
So we go to sleep tonight with great uncertainty about the state of things abroad. We know the market will respond hard to the news. If the news is good we will get a strong gap up that will allow all of the indexes to clear huge resistance at the 50-day exponential moving averages. More on that later. Big news is coming this weekend. If nothing else, at least there's something to be excited about in terms of moving this market through resistance, or below support. Let's get a real move going, for once, hopefully.
Fed Bernanke is getting very active here as he clearly doesn't like what he's seeing taking place abroad over in Europe. He's scared that the wrong party will be put in place, which would cause extreme chaos in the world financial system. This is why he promised the world, in an effort along with the central banks, to supply as much liquidity as would be needed if indeed the shock hits hard. He knows the ramifications of the worst case scenario, and seems unwilling to let the ship go down without a fight. No need arguing about whether it's the right thing to do. The market wants its back covered, and seems happiest when the Fed promises protection. He gave it just when he knew the market needed it.
Now the markets are addicted, once again, and nothing short of actual delivery will be acceptable. He won't let the world down, in my opinion. As I've said many times before, the Fed depends solely on Wall Street to keep the economy rolling happily along. He knows pulling back on his words of help would cause massive panic, so we should be ready for the next form of easing coming to a market near you quite soon.
There was more alarming news that came out this morning, which may also hint as to why the Fed came out yesterday talking about more easing to come. The New York State Manufacturing Report came out well below expectations showing the state of New York is in a rapid decline economically. That's the fifth straight decline in that number and ten full points below expectations. 2.3% versus 12.6% expected.
That's a big ouch for those of you who think the economy is fine in this country. When the number one state economically takes a plunge such as that, you better open your eyes to what's really taking place. Things are slowing rapidly to be sure. The Fed is nervous and readying everyone for more stimulus. If New York is plunging lower, it's highly probable that the rest of the country is suffering along as well. The steep decline is what's so troubling. A small blip is nothing to get worried about, but when you are dealing with a miss of that size, it tells you the European mess is taking its toll on the United States more quickly now. The Fed is, thus, responding to the message. Not a good one.
So here we are as we try to blow through those nasty 50-day exponential moving averages with some force. A good piece of news over the weekend from Greece will get the job done in all likelihood. Bad news will start us on the road to taking out that strong gap up at 1300 on the S&P 500. The second gap up, and hold in the patterns on all the major index charts today gives the market hope for the short-term. Watching 1300 and 1338 closely. Being above 1338 isn't enough. It has to clear with force to feel as if it's really made the move and with volume behind it as well. Stocks like Apple Inc. (AAPL) will need to get rolling to help the market out.
Have a fun weekend and I'll see you all Monday morning with Greece being the number one story.
Peace,
Jack
Jack Steiman is author of SwingTradeOnline.com ( www.swingtradeonline.com ). Former columnist for TheStreet.com, Jack is renowned for calling major shifts in the market, including the market bottom in mid-2002 and the market top in October 2007.
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