Today was a solid start to the week with stocks closing higher after Friday’s session. Janet Yellen’s speech spurred buyers it wasn’t until Fisher’s comments the market took a nose dive. As the market hit the lows buyers began to mount a defense pushing the market back nearly erasing all the losses. We will not argue with a start like this to the last full week of summer trading. Volatility continues to remain low and we have stocks like CYBE pushing higher. All eyes will be on Friday’s job report where many will be eyeing whether or not the FOMC may hike rates at their September meeting. It is anyone’s best guess at this point, but generally speaking a huge number will certainly add to the odds of a rate hike. All in all price action remains favorable to those who are long. We know not many are bullish, but for those who are like we are continue to reap the rewards.

Personal income and spending figures hit the wires this morning. Futures simply do not care about economic data unless it may move the FOMC to act in one direction or another. At this point, only inflation data and jobs data fits the mold. Friday’s job report will once again be the most important report ever or what we like to call just the next report. The hype surrounding this will be huge and thus we must continue to ignore it. There are plenty of stocks moving nicely and while this continues we are not going to argue with the market. We are sticking with the plan.

Where are the bulls these days? This market is just under all-time highs and the AAII report show only 29% of their respondents are bullish. 30% are bearish. NAAIM exposure index does remain above 90% showing active managers are quite bullish on the market. The little guy isn’t nearly as bullish. One thing to keep in mind is the AAII survey only tracks whether or not its member is bullish, bearish, or neutral. It does not take into account if the respondent is long, 100%, or short. The NAAIM Exposure index does. What we do see is the majority of NAAIM members are quite bullish with 0.0 of them bearish. Who will be right? So far active managers have been and should continue to be. We just see price action and for now we remain long this market.

An interesting nugget we were discussion in our chat room today was financials trade like a rate hike is coming, but bonds are trading like another round of QE is coming. Could it be we see both? In our eyes anything is possible. It would not surprise us to see the FOMC do another round of QE while hiking rates. Perhaps, they simply start printing money and handing it out to citizens as a way of implementing Universal Basic Income or UBI. Rather than throwing money out of a helicopter to banks the Fed will simply drop it into bank accounts. All speculation at this point, but the FOMC continues to be supportive of higher equity prices as do other central banks judging by their actions. Why would they cease to support this accommodative policy? We don’t see them ending it any time soon especially with a Presidential Election in November.

Higher we go. The train stops for no one. Have a great week!