Just When You Thought it was Safe to Use the ATM — Nick Santiago 7-26-23 #512

Daily Market Wisdom with Nick Santiago

1. It's Fed Day. The FOMC will make its interest rate decision for the US at 2pm ET. The Fed is expected to raise rates by 25 bps to 5.25-5.50%. Many investors are expecting this to be the last rate hike, but I'm not sure that will be the case. As you all know by now, the 2-year note rate will determine when the Fed is done. Currently the 2-yr yield is at 4.88%. If that starts to climb toward the Fed funds rate then there will be a lot of trouble for the Fe dand the stock market.
2. Earnings from MSFT and Google were released last night. MSFT is trading down by 3% and GOOG is higher by 5%. So these mega-cap tech stocks actually canceled each other out today. Next week we get APPL and AMZN earnings. Tonight META will report earnings.
3. The financial stocks are rallying today. This comes after we found out yesterday afternoon that Pacwest Bancorp (PACW) will be taken over by the Bank of California (BANC). This tells us that there is a lot of consolidation that is still to come in the regional banks.
Believe it or not, this is why the market has rallied. Since March there has been an enormous amount of money thrown at the financial system. Hence, a stock market rally.
4. Gold is flat today so far, but this can be a big mover after the FOMC announcement this afternoon.
5. Bitcoin is slightly in the green today. Currently, the weekly chart is still OK, but the daily chart is filled with choppiness.