February 22, 2023

Markets:

Stock futures ticked up slightly on Wednesday as Wall Street braced for the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes and more insight on the central bank’s future hiking agenda.

Shares of Palo Alto Networks popped 9.5% after the cybersecurity company lifted its earnings forecast for the year. Crypto exchange platform Coinbase topped revenue expectations.

Mounting concerns that the Fed will continue hiking rates spooked investors Tuesday and pushed stocks to their worst day of 2023. A slew of earnings reports, including disappointing results from Home Depot also sparked concerns about the health of the consumer.

Rising bond yields also kept the market on edge, with the rate on the 10-year Treasury note hitting its highest level since November during the day.

Attention now shifts toward the Fed minutes due out Wednesday. Investors will scour the results for insight into the central bank’s future rate hiking path and its recent 25 basis point increase.

Earnings season rolls on with results from Nvidia, Etsy and Baidu.

Portfolio:

We enter todays session holding a set-up in VKTX. Terrible session yesterday, one of the worst in months, and now this morning you begin to see news like from Fed Bullard stating the markets have overpriced a recession. It's all about the Fed minutes today and how the markets react and hold. Technically, nothing has broken yet and we will continue to point out that throughout the session yesterday as markets were selling we continued to see large blocks of upside call lots being bought across of a number high growth names. Very odd behavior and should tell you where this market could be headed. The hated rally continuing would infuriate so many people. Silence the noise and follow the trend / momentum. Yesterday was ugly but nothing has yet to break technically. Be on alert today and be ready for opportunity to trigger.