Will We Hold It Wednesday – Nasdaq 15,000 Edition

It’s an important week for the Nasdaq.

All the big tech names have reported so there’s not a lot to boost the market other than, of course, the Stimulus Bill but that’s already baked into the cake so now it’s time to see how high the Nasdaq can fly without a net.  Notice after the April earnings reports, the Nadaq gave up half it’s gains into May.  A pullback like that would take us back to 14,000, which is not a terrible sell-off (6.66%) but you never know what’s going to change investor sentiment.  

According to the 5% Rule™, the last consolidation zone was at 12,500 so we’re up 2,500 and that means we expect 500-point pullbacks to 14,750 (weak) and 14,500 (strong) before we can get over 15,500 – we’ll see how that plays out.  On the other hand, there’s no particular reason to expect bad news in the tech sector – so it’s all about sentiment in the weeks ahead.  We have the Consumer Sentiment Report on Friday and yesterday the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index dropped 2.8 points to 99.7 – completely reversing June’s gains.  

6 of the 10 Index components declined, three improved, and one was unchanged. The NFIB Uncertainty Index decreased 7 points to 76. Sales expectations over the next three months decreased 11 points to a net negative 4% of owners. Owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months decreased 8 points to a net NEGATIVE 20%. Earnings trends over the past three months decreased 8 points to a net NEGATIVE 13%. 49% of owners reported job openings that could not be filled, an increase of 3 points from June and a 48-year record high.

So we have a labor shortage and rapidly deteriorating forward expectations and a very negative earnings trend.  That is NOT GOOD.  49% of all businesses consider themselves understaffed – we saw that in last weeks stutter in the productivity report – how can you grow the economy when you don’t have enough workers?  While we are waiting for the robots to take our jobs, this is a serious problem.  

55% reported capital outlays in the last six months, up 2 points from June but historically not…

Provided courtesy of Phil’s Stock World.