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The Mario Draghi "No-Limits"-inspired rally from Thursday and Friday of last week ended on Monday with the Dow Jones down just over 200 points; the NASDAQ was down about 75 points, so an even bigger percentage drop But today the market reversed; the Dow actually recouped 100% of what it lost, it rose 282 points by the close A lot of volatility in the oil markets; down yesterday and up above $30/barrel today The bigger action today was in gold, up another $12 or so, the highest price for gold since the first week in November, last year Gold stocks had a big up day today, but they still have to rise about 8% to get back to where they were when gold was the price it is today Some of the battered down currencies in the commodities space had a good rally; the Canadian dollar and the Aussie dollar I think what the markets are preparing for is some type of statement from the Fed tomorrow; they began their 2-day meeting today and they will release a statement - there's no press conference People are looking for the Federal Reserve to acknowledge some type of change in the economy and therefore soften their stance on their 2016 rate increase projection The last time we heard from Janet Yellen, the Fed was on track for 4 rate hikes in 2016, and since then, no one has said anything to contradict that, despite what has happened in the U.S. and global markets Perhaps this recent market rally will give Janet Yellen a reason not to show her hand Of course, if she disappoints the markets and continues to pretend everything is great, this market's going down hard and all the gains will be surrendered Maybe she'll try to walk a middle ground by acknowledging the problems in China and in the oil market and say that the Fed is monitoring the situation in case there us unexpected spillover to the U.S. economy which is still otherwise in great shape She may save face by suggesting that if these outside influences somehow wash up on our shores, and they effect employment and inflation, maybe it will adjust its policy I'm not sure if that will be enough for the market; if the market sells off, the Fed is going to have to come back and quickly release more dovish rhetoric I read an article on Monday's Wall Street Journal and I posted it on my Facebook pageand it really was the equivalent of, This Time It's Different The headline was, "Recession Signals are Flashing Red" - they've been flashing red for a long time and the WSJ has been ignoring it The article says that, despite all the bad economic events and data that in the past have led to recession, that this time it's different The article tells us why we don't have to worry this time, while acknowledging the bad data and events, they say we can rest easy because we have this really strong labor market, and in prior recessions the labor market wasn't as strong Therefore, since the labor is so strong, we can ignore all the other signals that seem to be flashing recession I have said many times on this podcast, there is no strong labor market; it exists only in the eyes of statisticians who simply look at a rate of 5% and ignore how we got there They want to ignore the millions of people who have left the weak labor market and millions more who have settled for part time jobs So the weak labor market is consistent with all the other data that the WSJ is acknowledging, but tells us to ignore If we counted all the people outside of the labor market who are discouraged as unemployed, and we also counted all the underemployed people, and the unemployment rate was over 10%, then the WSJ would have to say, "Well, it's a recession!" How can a recession wait for the government to decide how it wants to measure the labor market? It is what it is, regardless how the government wants to spin it If we honestly assess the situation, the conclusion is that the labor market is weak Since all the data is weak, and it is not something to ignore,
