The media speaks of “The Market” as if it is unified. It is not. The investing market is a conglomeration of all investors whose desired outcomes are unique to each. Their portfolios are unique, distributed unequally across a broad spectrum of opportunities ranging from stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, currencies, derivatives, private equity and etc. with some longer-term(more than 12mos), some use hedging one asset class vs others use derivatives. Those who become media pundits are marketing their services and providing guidance to attract new investors making their commentary questionable. Even with diversity, there is mostly a uniform message aligned with the media’s daily assessment of what is best for attracting viewer attention. Viewers are always provided the distilled-down consensus opinion.
Investors are better served doing some homework to extract indicators not often discussed which is where the greatest opportunity lies. Opportunity lies in the details, not in the top-down perspective. In that vein, the SP500 rose to close at $4,553 while the Net Futures dropped to -263.7. The T-Bill rate held at unusually high levels considering the pessimism stated by some but $WTI has been rising indicating a belief by those who use oil as a hedge that economic demand is expanding. Oil consumption has been in a steady rise since Apr 2020 and is well above pre-COVID levels. There has been no fall or rise in this trend even with the various calls by those for recession vs calls by others for expansion. The trend has been a steady rise all along, indicating more or less a steady economic expansion. Various investors, with significant capital to cause these countering signals, reflect the shifting nature of the consensus. It is not a uniform market sentiment but different actors repositioning capital to what each believes offers the best opportunity for their particular strategy.
One has to take it all in, adjust for the various perspectives, which includes personal axes to grind, and make one’s own judgment. The net/net remains a high level of pessimism as employment rises even as there are certainly more with a positive perspective than there were last month.
It is always the loudest voices of the moment that gets the most attention.