Whether or not this is exactly a heuristic or not, perhaps someone will tell me, but one way of looking at markets is through momentum. Given the shark-like nature of U.S. Stock Markets - keep moving or die - a lack of momentum or very weak upside bias can be thought to equal moving backwards or going lower in terms of price. It is a very imprecise way of looking at markets, but I find it to be a useful shortcut in light of the thousands of inconsistent and almost nonsensical bits of information that news and financial media bombard the public with daily.
We live in an economy requiring growth. Any pause in growth, or Heaven forbid reversal of growth, is life-threatening to markets and the largely consumer-based U.S. Economy. Unfortunately, COVID-19 and its mismanagement by all levels of government has resulted in shutdowns, closing large sectors of the U.S. Economy and threatening whole sectors for potentially years to come. It is necessary that retail sales, GDP, employment, manufacturing, the stock market, etc. all continue to grow or at least that there is the perception of growth. In my opinion, even small gains - such as the 0.44% increase in the DJIA today - aren't sufficient to push the Dow up to 30,000 and beyond.
We are living through a very strange time with pandemics, strange weather, increased volcanic activity, earthquakes, etc. all coming together to create an apocalyptic pale over society and markets. None of this inspires confidence in the public. The inadequate response by government at all levels and the very lack of real political leadership in our age provide the opposite of confidence for society to move forward confident that the challenges we face will be met by a competent / adequate response. While the DJIA has weirdly bounced, then hovered between 25,000 to 27,000, this does not represent momentum so much as a shark slowly becoming less and less active and eventually become oxygen deprived.
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