Booooring: Stocks Stagnate The Day After The Fed Stays The Course -- Barron's Blog

     

By Ben Levisohn
        After all the excitement of recent weeks, it makes sense that stocks decided to take a breather today, one day after the Federal Reserve made only slight changes to its statement on monetary policy.
        The S&P 500 ended up 0.06 points, or 0.003%, to 2108.63, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 5.41 points, or 0.03%, to 17745.98. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 17.05 points, or 0.33%, to 5128.78.
        It also makes sense given the fact that the economic data released today was neither good nor bad enough to change anyone's mind, especially not U.S. GDP growth, which rose just 2.3%. RBS economist Michelle Girard explains:
        Q2 real GDP advanced by 2.3% annualized, close to expectations. The change in real GDP in Q1 was revised up from -0.2% annualized to +0.6% (however growth in the second half of 2014 was revised down from an annualized average pace of 3.6% to 3.2%). None of this will alter perceptions of the economy or the outlook for Fed policy.
        With respect to the composition of GDP, consumer spending was a bit stronger (+2.9% annualized) than we had anticipated, while business investment was weaker (-0.6% annualized), as spending on equipment was surprisingly soft (-4.1% annualized). The contributions to growth from trade (+0.1 percentage points) and inventories (-0.1 percentage points) were very smaller (and offsetting) in Q2. Finally, government spending rose modestly (+0.8% annualized).
        Rhino Trading's Michael Block is sitting on his hands:
        At this level SPUs are nine handles above the 50 day moving average, so of course the technicians are back to loving them again. I am going to wait until that mild form of love is upgraded to sloppy lust until I pull the trigger on the short side in earnest. I said as much regarding my patience as it pertains to everyone's beloved large cap bank stocks on the air yesterday...
        We are on a crash course to re-challenge the May SPU highs from here and one thing that has me thinking that we get to those lustful levels again is the AAII sentiment data out this morning. The percentage of moms and pops identifying as bearish rocketed to 40.7% from 25.6% and that's the highest percentage since August 22, 2013. The bulls' percentage is 21.1% vs. 32.5%, so that gives us a bull-bear spread of -19.6, which is the lowest since April 19, 2013. SPUs closed at 1547.50 on that date. They're over 35% higher now. It's hard to be a lemming right now.
        Right now, it feels more like a sloth.
        (END) Dow Jones Newswires
        July 30, 2015 16:28 ET (20:28 GMT)

#FX
#Forex
#SaleForex
#Booooring
#StocksStagnate
#TheDay
#TheFedStays
#TheCourse
#BarronsBlog