What Are You Watching Nowadays?
There are so many newsworthy events that might influence the market behavior that our head is spinning. There is also a limitless number of comments from analysts, politicians, economists, and bloggers. My Flipboard articles related to the stock market exceed 500/day (not that I read them all, but at least I browse through them). So, I decided to set up my priorities straight (yes, I know – this is not New Year’s resolution).
1. Trade Wars. Important, but I stopped watching daily announcements. 10% tariffs, 25% tariffs on 20 billion or on 100 billion or we can negotiate with China. Who knows. Let’s just wait and see.
2. Interest Rate Decision. Very important. Nothing today as expected, let’s wait for the statement.
3. Earnings. Very important. Apple was great, Netflix was not, Facebook was a disaster. According to many analysts FAANG’s are doomed. Not sure.
4. Interest Rates on 10-yr Treasuries. Very Important.
5. Consumer Confidence. Very important. Down a little bit.
6. ISM Manufacturing Index – down in July to 58.1% from 60.2% in June. While it is very healthy, let’s see the next reading for August.
7. Technical Levels. Resistance and Support for S&P become very important. Watch 2844 for S&P for resistance and 2784 for support. For Nasdaq – watch 7780 for resistance and 7588 for support. With more and more robo advisors trading purely on technical levels, these levels are somewhat important.
8. Political Developments. Tired. Cannot listen to the news any longer. I do not feel it has a too much influence on the markets (North Korea, Muller, Russia, Putin, NATO, Brexit, endless stream of immigrants to Europe, 3-D printing of guns, new nominee for the Supreme Court) – mostly temporary noise for the investment decisions. 5 minutes in the evening is sufficient.
