Search This Blog

Friday, April 27, 2012

Market Thought... seasonality

The slight upward trend in jobless claims comes as no surprise.


The last two years they have trended slightly upward during this part of the year. And each time, the market had the same reaction. The market went slightly down to flat.


As I highlighted before, the real cause for the major corrections were not the slight uptick in jobless claims, it was Europe. If there is no European financial systemic shock, then the market will acknowledge another pattern many are currently overlooking. After the uptick, the jobless claims continued to decline.

Considering corporate earnings, and the higher consumer confidence numbers, the jobless claims should continue to decline after this 'hump'.

The likely hood of a European scare this time around seems less likely. There are obvious concerns regarding Europe, but I think the market is discounting these obvious concerns. (Consider Apple, Google, QCOM, and many other secular growth stories at discounted multiples.)

Although, there is one recent subtlety that I want to point out. The last time the big boys were expecting a major market correction, IBM rallied in their face, and the market did not see the correction at the time all were expecting one. Similar action appears to be happening now.

How can we have a huge correction when IBM is rallying?

But I am sticking to my pervious thesis. If the Employment situation shows improvement from April, the treasury yield will spike. This will cause a nice rally in equities, to remove the current discount. (If the Employment Situation continues to suck, then the markets have a reason to muddle along or decline.)

No comments:

Post a Comment