Down goes the Dow

I think 2.9% is better than normal. Normal is 2%. And remember the 3Q was also very strong. Although with inflation flipping around up and down, no doubt these numbers are even more of estimates than usual.

economists seem to think the 1Q will fall back to almost no growth after the strong 2H22. We'll get the first GDP Now forecast of 1Q GDP growth tomorrow and that will give us an idea anyway.

Markets seem to be a whole heck of a lot more optimistic than economists. Stocks above 200 day and seem to have a bid under them at all times.

😹

Here is one for you guys ... the NASDAQ is at 11,400 now. Without cheating guess what the NASDAQ was one year ago AND 5 years ago. 5 years ago really surprised me.

TSLA up 50% YTD (i.e., 25 days). Wow.

Define recession

VIX down to 18, Greed and fear index in greed territory.

Seems a little ah buoyant. I'm taking some of my trading money off the table.

Big moves on leveraged ETFs, makes sense to trade the ranges.

Ok, first estimate of Q1 GDP is in:

Latest estimate: 0.7 percent — January 27, 2023

Which is a serious decline from the 3% rise in 2H22.

it's still very early of course - the quarter only started 3 weeks ago.

So there is a slowdown going on...but no real sign of recession. Even housing seems to have bottomed for now.

NASDAQ up 10% last 25 days.

Tesla is up something like 70% in a month. It's that VW short squeeze all over again.

Astonishing that a company as big as Tesla can be squeezed. Probably every hedge fund was short that one, thinking it is on a path to Ford valuations.

Oh man a lot of pain in hedge world on that one.

What the heck going on with Lucid. Was up 100% mid-day but has retreated to a 40% for the day.

anyone feeling brave? TSLS is a tesla inverse ETF. heh.

so tempting so tempting

but when a squeeze gets started it can go on an on an on. It's just gambling, not investing.

Earnings Scorecard: For Q4 2022 (with 29% of S&P 500 companies reporting actual results), 69% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive EPS surprise and 60% of S&P 500 companies have reported a positive revenue surprise.

From the same FactSet report:

“The Q4 earnings season for the S&P 500 continues to be subpar. While the number of S&P 500 companies reporting positive earnings surprises increased over the past week, the magnitude of these earnings surprises decreased during this time. Both metrics are still below their 5-year and 10-year averages. As a result, the earnings decline for the fourth quarter is larger today compared to the end of last week and compared to the end of the quarter. If the index reports an actual decline in earnings for Q4 2022, it will mark the first a year-over-year decline in earnings reported by the index since Q3 2020.”

There is a double inverse TSLA. “Do you feel lucky, punk?”

I have SARK, so somewhat in the negative TSLA camp. If TSLA does approach $200 I will swing for the fences on a double inverse Tesla trade.