We blowing money fast on this side

Catch up

-Rick Ross

It looks as if the U.S. economy has entered the ‘find out’ stage after all that free money ($11.0 trillion) during the ‘mess around’ stage, also known as the pandemic and post pandemic. But for the record, a lot of that money is still being distributed on the federal and state levels.

Find Out

In this stage, we see a slowing economy and the probability of the proverbial snowball becoming a boulder. It’s already begun in housing and manufacturing, and the strong consumer now has the second lowest savings rates on record and soaring credit card debt.

In the world of economics, this is called confidence. In the clubs, they call it a party. In most households, this is called pushing the envelope, and everyone knows what comes next - buckling down and surviving.

Market: Rough Sailing

• S&P 500 (SPX) -2.49%
• Nasdaq Composite (IXIC)-3.23%
• Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) -2.25%
• Russell 2000 (RUT) -2.52%

Stocks stumbled out of the gate and never looked back. Safe havens got hit, but growth got slammed, which has been par for the course in 2022 . There was very little green on the screen with Tesla (TSLA) being the largest speck.

Portfolio Approach

We closed several positions yesterday in our Hotline Model Portfolio. If you have any questions, reach out to your account representative or email Research@wstreet.com

Today’s Session

There is lots of scuttlebutt over the impact of $4.0 trillion in options expiration. I’m not sure, but the follow-through to yesterday could be more critical. We are used to major moves, especially to the downside, the day after the conclusion of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

The day after is probably a better proxy for the days and weeks ahead.

Selling begets selling. I think Powell miscommunicated, and we will be eager to see if parade of Fed speakers hint at adjustments after the retail sales report.