Weekly Technical Reviews

Technical Review

Cloudy Economic Data

We are in the Twilight Zone for economic data. It’s not that economic data for March and April will be ignored because it won’t be. But every data point will be come with an asterisk *, with the asterisk meaning before the Tariff War. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (PCE) for March...

Technical Review

Questioning the Fed’s Independence

Financial markets have been roiled since President Trump started the Trade War with almost every country in the world. After Chair Powell spoke to the Economics Club of Chicago on April 16, President Trump lashed out in his normal reserved manner. President Trump must know that inflation will...

Technical Review

Shifting Tariffs = Volatility

On April 9 President Trump rolled back the excessive reciprocal tariffs and the S&P 500 rallied 9.1%. Over the weekend President Trump removed the tariffs on smart phones, computers and electronics. On Sunday President Trump said there would be tariffs on these products but in a different...

Technical Review

Special Report - President Trump Provides Tariff Relief

At 1:18 pm est. President Trump announced that he was authorizing a 90 day PAUSE to allow for negotiations with the 75 countries that have not responded with any retaliation in response to the Reciprocal Tariffs President Trump implemented. At the time of the announcement the S&P 500 was...

Technical Review

It Ain’t Over ‘til it’s Over

Based on 2023 data the average tariff levied on US Goods was 4.6% compared to the average tariff the US charged our trading partners of 2.2%. The expectation was that President Trump would increase the US tariff modestly above the 4.6% rate charged by other countries on US exports. Instead, the...

Technical Review

Liberation Day or Tariff-ied

President Trump has declared April 2 to be Liberation Day. “ This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America. We’re going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they’ve been taking over the years. They’ve...

Technical Review

FOMC – More Inflation, Less Growth

The FOMC met last week and made no meaningful changes and Chair Powell in his opening statement emphasized that uncertainty is driving monetary policy. “ The new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas—trade, immigration, fiscal policy...

Technical Review

Bracing for a Slowdown

As expected, investors in the last 4 weeks have realized that President Trump is serious about broadly applying tariffs, which have the potential to lift inflation and hurt consumers that are already struggling with the high cost of living. According to Bloomberg, articles that have included...

Technical Review

Persistent Uncertainty

In the last two years investors weren’t presented with many reasons to sell and were conditioned to buy every dip no matter how shallow. Along the way there were a few bumps – regional bank upset in March 2023, correction in the summer of 2023, and the Japanese Yen shakeout in August 2024....

Technical Review

Economic Growth Scare

There have been a number of economic reports in the last two weeks that have been weaker than expected creating a growth scare. Retail Sales in January fell -0.9% which was much weaker than the forecast dip of -0.2%. This raised concerns that consumer spending was starting to falter. The S&...