February 15, 2024

Markets:

Stock futures rose Thursday as Wall Street looked to build on a modest rebound from Wednesday.

Stocks rallied on Wednesday but did not erase all of the losses from Tuesday’s sell-off, which came on the heels of a hotter-than-expected inflation report. The S&P 500 recaptured the 5,000 level, closing slightly above it. Investors are weighing whether the Federal Reserve can bring down inflation without derailing an economy that keeps surprising to the upside.

Investors received another update about the state of the U.S. economy on Thursday, with January retail sales plunging 0.8%, much more than the 0.3% decline economists polled by Dow Jones had expected. This raised some concern about the strength of the U.S. consumer under the weight of sticky inflation and high interest rates, and sent Treasury yields down.

Earnings season continues to paint a muddled picture of corporate America. Cisco shares were down 4% in premarket trading after the tech company announced layoffs and weak forward sales projections. Tripadvisor jumped 5% after beating estimates on the top and bottom lines.

Japan’s economy shrank unexpectedly during the last quarter of 2023, according to government data. Provisional gross domestic product contracted 0.4% in the fourth quarter compared with a year ago, after a revised 3.3% slump in the July-September period.

Portfolio:

We enter this monster session holding set-ups in PATH, PLTR, SOFI, and STNE.  Locked and loaded and positions moving nicely now after that hiccup the other day with the response to the CPI number.  Technically, this market continues to build and we absolutely love to see the cries for a pullback over and over.  The people who continue to deny this move and what is happening here is still unimaginable to us.  They refuse to see price activity.  2024 has all the ingredients to go down as one of the greatest years for traders.  Early stages!  Get ready folks and be ready.