Market Comment - October 1

(Marco Bonelli) Let's get real again...

After two weeks of analyzing what QEternity means and how much had been discounted in risk-on asset prices, whether global economic slowdown concerns, fiscal cliff and European sovereign debt and economic crisis is something to really worry about anew, repositioning portfolios ahead of Q4 and declaring last week's stock market performance the worst since June as the two-week performance accumulated to a whopping 2.3% loss in the SPX and 2.75% loss in the NDX, the upcoming two, three weeks will be crucial as investors get presented with plenty of real data.


This week will clearly focus on the economic calendar as data from the past two weeks was rather confusing, slightly improving on one side but also apparent implosions for durable good orders and the Chicago PMI that even raised the question again if the U.S. economy is more at the edge of entering a recession. Data to watch will be the National ISM Manufacturing Index (will it confirm the Chicago PMI?), the National ISM Non-Manufacturing Index (does the service sector still hold up?) and of course various employment data (does the labor market show any signs of growth?). Forward-looking data will probably be even more important as market participants might have already accepted that Q3 did not qualify for the definition "economic recovery", so another weak number from Q3 won't change any view as the quarter had largely been written off.

Next week the focus will switch to the earnings calendar but this topic has already been covered quite a bit and will be certainly touched again once we get closer to the reporting season.

As already indicated on top, the profit-taking in the past two weeks has been quite modest; most major indexes that broke out to new multi-year highs ahead of or following the QEternity announcement held above or at these breakout levels. The Value Line Index briefly broke out of its 5-year downtrend but fell back into it; the 363/364 level remains very crucial. Interestingly but not surprisingly, defensive sectors remained in favor and trade at all-time highs while many cyclical sectors pulled back more than the major indexes suggested, which makes it a quite interesting buy-the-dip opportunity, should the market react to any decent economic data. In this context, the technology, capital goods and energy sector look fairly attractive; the financial sector also has plenty of upside before it reaches the upper end of the broad 3 ½ years trading range and consumer and retail stocks continue to be the best performing cyclical sector.

The surprise factor still embraces positive data and headlines and upside for the stock market! Q3 gets seen as rather disappointing from an economic and earnings perspective, so any positive economic data or slightly better than expected weak earnings reports in combination with maybe not another major warnings for Q4 from one company or the other should have a positive effect on the market as many market participants pile in the rather negative consensus corner and probably still expect a short-term mini correction.

Trade well.


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