February 1, 2023

Markets:

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slipped Wednesday as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday meeting.

The Fed at 2 p.m. ET will announce how much it is increasing interest rates in its latest effort to tame high inflation. Markets are expecting a 25 basis point, or 0.25 percentage point, bump from the central bank. On Tuesday, the employment cost index, a measure of wage increases, showed compensation rose 1% in the fourth quarter, less than the 1.1% estimate by Dow Jones. The Fed’s announcement will be followed by comments from Chair Jerome Powell.

Still, traders may be getting ahead of themselves in expecting a more dovish tone from the Fed, or looking for signs that a pause in hikes or even a pivot is coming soon.

Wall Street is coming off a strong session to end January. The Dow ended Tuesday nearly 369 points higher, rising by 1.09%. The S&P 500 gained 1.46% to cap its best January performance since 2019. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1.67%, notching its best January performance in 22 years.

Portfolio:

Fed day is here! Cannot wait to get through this event and watch price activity and trend lines for the next level type of movement. Today should feed and ignite the next move and we are super excited over it. Nice day for our open trades yesterday and we enter todays session holding set-ups in U, TSLL, and AEHR. We will be looking to add but most likely AFTER the Fed. Unless we see something explosive prior, i'ts hard to front run the Fed move. Let's have a great session and be ready today.