People Are Pumped

So it didn't happen, and in a way, that might be a good thing. The fastest 1000 point move in the history of the market happened back on May 3, 1999, when Dow Jones broke 10000 then raced to 11000 in 24 days. 

Those were very heady and exciting days, but the market was feeding on itself as new highs beget new highs. These days there is still a fair amount of skepticism in the air and so many Trump fans remain intimidated by the stock market.

(The craziest thing is people are cheering the recovery of America, but are reluctant to participate, other than hoping for more pay.  Wages are going higher, but money under the pillow loses value daily.)

We want to feel sentiment surge initially, but then it must be followed by the actual performance of the economy- and all the pieces are in place for this to happen. First, the confidence must be in place because the kind if success we are looking for doesn’t occur through luck.  People are pumped.

The confidence number from Conference Board came in 113.7, the highest since August 2001, driven by anticipation over jobs, business conditions and the stock market.  

Yesterday, we saw rotation into materials and information technology, and consumer discretionary names are oversold from last week’s scare following that big miss by BBBY and lower retail sales data.