Market Comment - March 26

(Marco Bonelli) Pick your spot!

Ben Bernanke pronounced that it's "unclear if the pace of job gains can be sustained", adding that further "accommodation is needed to bring big gains in jobs" - statements that immediately get interpreted as QE3 is round the corner.


This seems a little bit controversial after Ben Bernanke's Humphrey Hawkins testimony, various remarks that interest rates may have to get raised before the end of 2014 and the fact that the Fed reduced the Monetary Base in the past weeks.

While comments over the weekend covered more the "worst week this year" for the Dow Jones and SPX, Friday's market showed a decent reversal to the upside (after industrial, technology and retailers lead the broad averages lower in the first 45 minutes) and many indexes defended support levels like the up-trend from October for the Dow, Russell 2000 and S&P 400 Mid-cap or the November up-trend for the SPX. Energy, basic materials and financials lead the rally, although the under-lying breadth remained relatively weak. Renewed QE3 hopes appear to further bolster the positive trends but wasn't it exactly the opposite message that triggered the recent out of bonds into equities wave?

With the Q1 earnings season a mere two weeks ahead, sell-side analysts seemed to have jumped on the economic recovery consensus and actually started raising estimates a couple of weeks ago (mainly in the technology and financial sector!) after slashing them for about three months. As a result Q1 earnings growth is currently expected to be around +0.2% (obviously not a huge difference to the -0.6%, which was expected beginning of March and therefore not a reason to switch into party mode right away). At the same time the latest reaction to earnings releases (like ORCL, GME, KKD, MU, NKE or KBH) is not too encouraging and suggests quite some  profit-taking, especially in those sectors and stocks that showed a strong performance year-to-date.

The ambivalent reaction to and interpretation of headlines, data and statements created a highly nervous intraday rebound, intraday pullback and yo-yo environment that leaves even the most skilled flip-flop commentators running out of words. Could it be that the bull-camp that embraces the global economic recovery is getting too crowded and the bullish message gets too confused by the many contradicting signs?

Trade well in this last trading week of the quarter!


(Marco Bonelli is the Managing Director of International for CL King & Associates in New York. The opinions expressed are his own.)