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Daily Market Update – May 21, 2015 (9:15 AM)
The market seems to be reflecting the fact that the biggest story of the week is that it marked the final episode of the David Letterman era on late night television. This morning is another in a series of quiet early morning starts in a week that doesn’t have very much news, although there may be some spillover as the concept of official government GDP numbers having been wrong begins to really sink in. The quiet mornings of the past week have also been reflected in this week’s personal trading activity. The market hasn’t done too much to make tomorrow look as if it will be overly active one on a personal level, as the weakness has made those rollovers and assignments look less and less likely. Yesterday’s release of the FOMC minutes gave the impression that interest rate hikes were not going to be likely in June, as the members of the FOMC repeatedly emphasized their dependence on data. This week is likely to continue being a quiet one, unless some more news related to the quality of economic data comes in. While the reading of those minutes gave stock market bulls some reason to believe that the rally could continue, the reality is that all of those words that were being said were all being said in the context of believing the data that was in front of them. Any further insight into what the data really is, especially if it does indicate more substantial growth than the disappointing numbers we had been receiving, could easily get the FOMC to take an action that is completely counter to what they had been intending. You certainly couldn’t blame them for that. If so, that would certainly put the brakes on any continuing climb beyond 2120 on the S&P 500. With next week being a holiday shortened week I’m still undecided as to what tactic to take. Much of that indecision is based upon not knowing whether the next 2 days will bring any opportunity to create income or see cash reserves get replenished, as those prospects are seemingly less likely. I would love to see some nice, albeit totally unexpected advance today to be able to get those expiring positions into better condition for either rollovers or assignments. Although the early pre-open trading isn’t giving any indication of that being the case, there is at least still some hope for some of the positions to be put into action before Friday’s final bell. But if conventional wisdom holds, there’s not much reason to overly commit to the long side ahead of a long weekend. That’s the logical expectation, but there hasn’t been too much of that over the past couple of years, as some of the best Friday’s have come either going into long weekends or weekends of great uncertainty. So I’ll remain hopeful and watchful as the hours tick down to Friday’s closing bell.
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