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Daily Market Update – July 15, 2015 (9:00 AM) It looks as if the US stock market will be in a state of suspended animation until the question and answer period of Janet Yellen’s mandated Congressional testimony begins today. The formal statement that she will be reading has already been released and the futures remains flat. No one would have expected any bombshells to be contained in the prepared text anyway and for the most part, other than at her very first press conference as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen has been very capable of measuring her words and not saying something that she neither meant nor meant to divulge. Yesterday, flat was a good place to start the day as the market was able to find some reason to move forward and end the day just 1.5% away from its all time highs. It’s hard to believe that barely a week ago it seemed as if we were looking down the barrel of a gun. The market was already down 5% and right at a technical level of support on the S&P 500. That was all happening as the Chinese situation was seeming to unravel and the Greeks were technically in default on their loans and without any life preserver in sight. Funny how quickly things can change. For now all things are quiet on the overseas fronts and all we have to think about are earnings and whatever bits of information Janet Yellen may discide to parse out for us to digest. So far, as she’s had the opportunity to appear before Congress the questions have, for the most part been more gentle than had greeted her predecessors, so she has likely had a little easier time formulating answres that wouldn’t set off fireworks of any kind because of any slip ups or mis-statements on her part. FOr the most part this testimony has been the sort of place where elected officials could ask questions in order to capture sound bites to be used in the re-election campaigns that would help to make them look as if they were on top of things and against big government and pro-capitalism. The most egregeous and long winded questions, as well as the ones who would consistently interrupt the answers would typically come from those who obviously were the least qualified to ask any questions of an esteemed economist. Her testimony continues tomorrow, but it’s usually the first day thta is more likely to see some fireworks. Of course, tomorrow we may be greeted by some kind of curveball coming from an expected vote by the Greek Parliament, but it’s unlikely that they’ll set the situation back to where it had been just 2 weeks ago. As with so many other things that we’ve seen, it’s better to take a deal or make a decision, even if it only means delaying the real decision that has to be made. This is shaping up to be a very quiet trading week, although there are still some potential trades that I might like to make, although at this point they would likely be considering the use of options expiring next week. For now, I would be content watching the market go higher and challenge those all time highs in preperation for maybe being able to do something next week, instead. |
