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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

UNLESS YOU ONLY BOUGHT MAG-7 IN Q2 YOU LOST MONEY!

The Magnificent 7 stocks have added $2.3 trillion in market cap in Q2 while the 493 other stocks in the S&P 500 have lost $720 billion.

Since The Powell Pivot, the Magnificent 7 stocks alone have added over $5 trillion in market cap. Cumulative Buybacks over the last 5 years have totaled $4.3T. Where did the $4.3T come from? (view LONGWave - 06 12 24 - JUNE - The Great Debt for Equity Swap)

RESEARCH

AN INFLATIONARY DEPRESSION - Has It Already Begun?

• In a Sound Money Regime we can experience Depressions: Unemployment, Bankruptcies, Falling Prices, Devaluing Asset Prices and Deleveraging as Collateral Values Fall.
• In a Fiat Currency Regime we can experience Inflationary Depressions: Lost Purchasing Power Devalues Asset Prices - ie Real Estate falls in Price due to falling Real Disposable Income, Falling Savings and Rising Costs (Taxes, Maintenance), Rising Import costs, Falling Wealth - falling Housing Prices (Affordability) PLUS The standard impacts of Depression as well as Deleveraging as Collateral Values Fall.
• Additionally we have "Inflationary Pressures Regulated into Law"
• Cost of Climate Change Programs and Initiatives
• Cost of Sustainability & Green Programs and Initiatives.
• All this leads to an unfolding Inflationary Depressionary Process:
• Stagnation
• Stagflation
• Debt Crisis

THE INDIRECT EXCHANGE - How to Invest In An Inflationary Depression

• Exchanging NOTHING for SOMETHING
• "Something" is not Consumption nor the purchasing of non-Durable Goods
• "Something" is an Appreciating Asset (Collateral Wealth)
• "Something" has the attributes of:

1. Scarcity
2. Sustainable Demand -Shelter, Food, Water, Energy, Security (Retirement, Healthcare)
3. Cash Flows positive

• "Nothing" is Present Value of a Currency Expected to Lose Purchasing Power.
• You must exchange that (worthless) paper claim for "Something".

DEVELOPMENTS TO WATCH

THE EU REGULATORY STATE - Regulatory Repression

• Flawed Model Has lead to Regulatory / Single Market Destruction
• The 3 Fronts of Coming Change:

1. A Flawed Structural Model
2. Single Market Rule Stifling Innovation
3. A Weak Germany & Broke Core France (3% Excess Deficit)

DARK POOLS - Growing Control and Influence

• As Nvidia achieved a $3 Trillion Market Cap we have noticed that Dark Pools are making over 300,000 trades in the stock weekly???
• Our first instinct was to take a look to see how much trading in Nvidia’s shares is occurring in Dark Pools – non-transparent trading platforms operated by some of the biggest trading houses on Wall Street, (which are also, insanely, allowed to own some of the largest federally-insured U.S. commercial banks holding trillions of dollars in deposits).
• Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, began providing some Dark Pool data back in 2014. Unfortunately, the trading data for each Dark Pool and the respective stock it is trading is lumped together for the entire week, not by the minute or hour or day, and the data arrives to the public two weeks late for big cap stocks and four weeks late for smaller companies.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC REPORTING

US GDP Q1 FINAL

• The US economy expanded an annualized 1.4% in Q1 2024, slightly higher than 1.3% in the second estimate, but continuing to point to the lowest growth since the contractions in the first half of 2022.

GOVERNMENT TRANSFER PAYMENTS - 2024 SURGE IN SOCIAL BENEFITS (Chart Right)

• 2024 Surge in Transfer Payments for Social Benefits directly contributed to the 1.4% Q1 GDP - the sixth straight month of rising government handouts.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING INCREASED DUE TO WAGE INCREASES - Nearly Double the Private Sector

• Government Wages increased 8.5%, up from 8.4% but below the record high of 8.9% (Note: This does not include Pension Increases.)
• Private Sector Wages increased 4.5% up from 4.2%.

In this week's "Current Market Perspectives", we focus on the signals that sentiment, fundamentals and various markets (Credit, Bond and Equity) are currently giving us.

=========

AN INFLATIONARY DEPRESSION - Has It Already Begun?

AN INFLATIONARY DEPRESSION

• In a Sound Money Regime we can experience Depressions:

1. Unemployment
2. Bankruptcies
3. Falling Prices
4. Devaluing Asset Prices
5. Deleveraging as Collateral Values Fall

• In a Fiat Currency Regime we can experience Inflationary Depressions:

1. Lost Purchasing Power Devalues Asset Prices - ie Real Estate falls in Price due to falling Real Disposable Income, Falling Savings and Rising Costs (Taxes, Maintenance)
2. Rising Import costs
3. Falling Wealth - falling Housing Prices (Affordability)
4. The standard impacts of Depression (Unemployment, Bankruptcies, Falling Prices, Devaluing Asset Prices)
5. Deleveraging as Collateral Values Fall

• Additionally we have "Inflationary Pressures Regulated into Law":

1. Cost of Climate Change Programs and Initiatives
2. Cost of Sustainability & Green Programs and Initiatives

• Leads to an unfolding Inflationary Depressionary Process:

1. Stagnation
2. Stagflation
3. Debt Crisis

Today we are supposed to trust and rely on data that few professionals anymore believe is real. 

• Consider that most economic models used through the 1970s, and still today, postulate that there is a forever tradeoff between output (with employment as a proxy) and inflation, such that when one is up, the other is down (Phillips Curve). 
• Now we face a situation where the jobs data are profoundly affected by bad surveys and labor dropouts. Output data is distorted by history-making levels of government spending and debt, and no one is even trying anymore to provide a realistic accounting of inflation. 

FALSE, MISLEADING & POLITICALLY SPUN ECONOMIC REPORTING

I have been pounding on this subject for 2 years now. So here is how the political unbiased Epoch News' lead Economist Jeffrey Tucker and Peter St Onge (also a professional economist) and Fellow at the Mises Institute, recently frustratingly outlined the issue:

1- INFLATION

The Bureau of Labor Statistics simply cannot keep up, partially because the Consumer Price Index does not calculate the following: interest on anything, taxes, housing, health insurance (accurately), homeowners insurance, car insurance, government services like public schools, shrinkflation, quality declines, substitutions due to price, or additional service fees. 

That’s a major part of what has gone up, which is why data on particular industries shows a huge gap (groceries up 35% over four years), and why ShadowStats estimates inflation in double digits two years running, having peaked at 17%. Just adding in interest, a paper from NBER estimates, takes 2023 inflation to 19%.

Various studies have shown that since 2019 fast food prices — a gold standard in financial markets for measuring true inflation — have outpaced official CPI by between 25% and 50%.

2- RETAIL SALES

Getting the inflation data wrong is only the start of the problem. We are lucky if any government data even adjusts for the wrong numbers. Consider retail sales as just one example. Let’s say you bought a hamburger last year for $10 and you bought one this week for $15. Would you say that your retail spending is up 50%? No, you just spent more on the same thing. Well, guess what? All retail sales are calculated this way. 

3- FACTORY ORDERS

It’s the same with factory orders. You have to do the inflation adjustments yourself. Even using conventional data, which are wildly underestimated, wipes out all gains of the last several years. EJ Antoni is one of the few economists actually keeping up with this stuff, and he produces the following two charts. As EJ writes: 

“This is factory orders before and after adjusting for inflation: what looks like a 21.1% increase from Jan ’21 to Mar ’24 is only a 1.8% increase – the rest is just higher prices, not more physical stuff; worse yet, real orders are down 6.9% since their highwater mark in June ’22.”

Imagine the same charts but with more realistic adjustments. Are you getting the picture? The mainstream data being dished out daily by the business press is fake. And imagine the same charts above redone with inflation in the double digits as it should be. We’ve got a serious problem!!

EMPLOYMENT REPORTING DATA

The problems with the employment data are getting to be more well-known. Essentially, the establishment data that is normally reported is double-counting or just plain inaccurate, and there is a huge divergence with the other method of counting jobs via household surveys. EJ again offers this look (Chart Right). 

In addition, neither worker/population ratios nor the labor participation rate are back to pre-lockdown levels. 

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)

Now consider GDP - In the old formula hammered out in the 1930s, government spending adds to the GDP while cuts subtract from it, just as exports add and imports subtract. Why? It’s an old theory rooted in a kind of Keynesian/mercantilism that no one seems ever to change. But the bias is profound these days with explosive government spending. 

To calculate whether and to what extent we are in recession, we look not at nominal GDP but real GDP; that is, adjusted for inflation. Two down quarters are considered recessionary. What if we adjust pathetic and seriously mis-estimated output numbers by a realistic understanding of inflation over the last few years? 

We don’t have the numbers, but a back-of-the-envelope suggests that we never left the recession of March 2020 and that everything has been getting gradually worse. 

That appears to fit with every single consumer sentiment survey. It seems likely that people themselves are better observers of reality than government data collectors and statisticians. 

So far, we’ve dealt briefly with inflation, output, sales and find that none of the official data is reliable. One mistake bleeds to others, such as adjusting output for inflation or adjusting sales for increased prices. The jobs data is particularly problematic because of the problem of double-counting. 

What to know about household finance? The flipping of savings rates and credit card debt tell the story. 

When you add it all up, you get a strange sense that nothing we are being told is real. According to official data, the dollar has lost about 23 cents in purchasing power over the last four years. Absolutely no one believes this. Depending on what you actually spend money on, the real answer is closer to 35 cents or 50 cents or even 75 cents…or more. We do not know what we cannot know. 

We are left to speculate. And this problem is combined with the reality that this is not just a US problem. The increase in inflation and the decline in output is truly global. We might call this an inflationary recession or high inflationary depression, all over the world.

THE INDIRECT EXCHANGE - How To Invest In An Inflationary Depression

SOLUTION: THE INDIRECT EXCHANGE

• Exchanging NOTHING for SOMETHING.
• "Something" is not Consumption nor the purchasing of non-Durable Goods.
• "Something" is an Appreciating Asset (Collateral Wealth).
• "Something" has the attributes of:

1. Scarcity
2. Sustainable Demand - Shelter, Food, Water, Energy, Security (Retirement, Healthcare)
3. Cash Flows positive

• "Nothing" is Present Value of a Currency Expected to Lose Purchasing Power.
• You must exchange that (worthless) paper claim for "Something".

EXAMPLES



WHY BUFFET BUYS INSURANCE COMPANIES

WHY BLACKSTONE (& PRIVATE EQUITY) IS BUYING RENTAL HOUSING

DUE TO THE SIZE OF THIS NEWSLETTER, WE WILL HAVE MORE ABOUT ALL THIS

IN THE UPCOMING LONGWave VIDEO

DEVELOPMENTS

THE EU REGULATORY STATE - Regulatory Repression

Europe is broken, and the EU is about to be consumed on three fronts with its hapless leadership having no idea how to prevent it!

1- A FLAWED MODEL

Central Monetary Policy with Decentralized Fiscal Policy, a Single Currency and no ability to Tax was Doomed from the beginning.

EVERYONE WARNED AS SUCH!!

2- LOST ECONOMIC LEADERSHIP

Germany in Trouble As the Primary Financier of the T2 Accounts

After a recession in 2023, Germany's economy is expected to expand by just 0.2% this year, the lowest rate in the G7. It would only take a modest shock for it to be back in a full-blown recession. German prosperity, built in part on the ready availability of cheap Russian gas to power heavy industry and fuel exports around the world, is taking a beating. And with the country still resolutely opposed to contemplating nuclear power as a replacement, those days of cheap energy don’t look set to return any time soon. 

This is a problem for the entire Continent. At its peak, Germany was the heart of the EU economy, driving its growth and – German taxpayers might well have grumbled – paying for its bills, (particularly since London grew tired of forking over cash and quit the bloc). If Germany gets into more trouble, it will drag the whole of the EU down with it.

France Fiscally In Default of EU 3% Deficit Rule

 Not only is France's Fiscal Deficit greater than the 3% EU Target - the controlling French Left Bloc doesn't care!!

Both Countries Are Signaling a Change May be in the Wind!

3- SINGLE MARKET RULES - NOW STIFLING INNOVATION

As Ruchir Sharma argues in his brilliant new book: What Went Wrong With Capitalism:

“Because the EU lacks the power to tax and spend directly ... it has turned itself into a pure regulatory state [that is now] issuing rules and regulations at an exponential pace.”

The result is a Single Market that, rather than promoting competition, dynamism and innovation, seems instead to stifle it with an ever growing burden of rules. This reached a new low this week when Apple delayed the launch of its new AI-driven iPhone features for fear of falling foul of EU rules. Quite understandably, it does not want to risk being hit with fines running into the billions for a market worth less than 15pc of the global economy. 

It’s all too fitting a metaphor for the current state of play: having regulated its own technology sector into near non-existence, the EU is now busy regulating the products of its American competitors out of its market. The result will be to turn the bloc into an open-air museum, growing constantly poorer than the US.

DARK POOLS - Growing Control and Influence

As Nvidia achieved a $3 Trillion Market Cap, we have noticed that Dark Pools are making over 300,000 trades in the stock weekly???

Our first instinct was to take a look to see how much trading in Nvidia’s shares is occurring in Dark Pools – non-transparent trading platforms operated by some of the biggest trading houses on Wall Street, (which are also insanely allowed to own some of the largest federally-insured U.S. commercial banks holding trillions of dollars in deposits).

Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, began providing some Dark Pool data back in 2014.

Unfortunately, the trading data for each Dark Pool and the respective stock it is trading is lumped together for the entire week, not by the minute or hour or day, and the data arrives to the public two weeks late for big cap stocks and four weeks late for smaller companies.

The three charts in this section show the top eight Dark Pools that made the largest number of trades in Nvidia’s stock for a recent three weeks that FINRA has made trading data available.

• The Dark Pool owned by Interactive Brokers has consistently been the largest trader of Nvidia’s shares.
• In second and third place has been global banking behemoths UBS and JPMorgan, respectively.
• Dark Pools owned by other global trading powerhouses, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, have also ranked in the top eight.
• Interestingly, JPMorgan has shelled out $250 million in fines to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; $98.2 million to the Federal Reserve and $100 million (netted down from $200 million) to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission since March for failing to provide proper surveillance of “billions” of trades. The regulators were deafeningly silent on whether JPMorgan’s Dark Pools were involved in these infractions.

A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

Following the stock market crash of 1929 (which ushered in the Great Depression), the U.S. Senate Banking Committee conducted an exhaustive investigation into the trading structure and trading practices on Wall Street. The titans of Wall Street were put under oath and troves of documents were subpoenaed. The Senate investigations focused on the collusive dealings of “pools.” The 1930s Senate investigation found the following:

“A pool, according to stock exchange officials, is an agreement between several people, usually more than three, to actively trade in a single security. The investigation has shown that the purpose of a pool generally is to raise the price of a security by concerted activity on the part of the pool members, and thereby to enable them to unload their holdings at a profit upon the public attracted by the activity or by information disseminated about the stock. Pool operations for such a purpose are incompatible with the maintenance of a free and uncontrolled market.”

The Senate Banking Committee of 1934 concluded as follows:

“The conclusion is inescapable that members of the organized exchanges who had a participation in or managed pools, while simultaneously acting as brokers for the general public, were representing irreconcilable interests and attempting to discharge conflicting functions. Yet the stock exchange authorities could perceive nothing unethical in this situation.”

U.S. regulators are not only allowing these quasi stock exchanges to operate in darkness, they are allowing Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and others to trade their own publicly-traded bank stocks in their own Dark Pools.

The U.S. stock market, once the envy of the world, remains dangerously opaque today, in no small part because of the sick revolving door structure between Wall Street and its regulators.

Congress does not feel compelled to tackle the problem because corporate media has chosen to ignore the mushrooming problem. Even after bestselling author and Wall Street veteran, Michael Lewis, went on the heavily watched 60 Minutes program on CBS in 2014 and told viewers that “The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.”

Congress and the SEC have continued to dance around the problem. Until the public demands change, the darkness will continue to deepen in increasingly dangerous ways.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC INDICATORS:

What This Week's Key Global Economic Releases Tell Us

US GDP Q1 FINAL

The US economy expanded an annualized 1.4% in Q1 2024, slightly higher than 1.3% in the second estimate, but continuing to point to the lowest growth since the contractions in the first half of 2022.

Consumer spending slowed more than initially anticipated, (1.5% vs 2% in the second estimate), due to consumption of both goods (-2.3% vs -1.9%) and services (3.3% vs 3.9%).

This confirms what recent earnings reports from MCD, MMM, KO, POOL, and most recently, Walgreens, have made very clear (and why Goldman recently said to short the middle-income consumer): the US consumer, that pillar supporting 70% of GDP growth, is cracking.

GOVERNMENT TRANSFER PAYMENTS - 2024 SURGE IN SOCIAL BENEFITS

2024 Surge in Transfer Payments for Social Benefits directly contributed to the 1.4% Q1 GDP - the sixth straight month of rising government handouts.

GOVERNMENT SPENDING INCREASED DUE TO WAGE INCREASES

• Government Wages increased 8.5%, up from 8.4% but below the record high of 8.9%.
• Private Sector Wages increased 4.5% up from 4.2%.

GLOBAL MACRO

WHAT DOES YOUR SCAN OF THE DATA BELOW TELL YOU? - THE MEDIA AVOIDS BAD NEWS!

We present the data in a way you can quickly see what is happening.

THIS WEEK WE SAW

Exp=Expectations, Rev=Revision, Prev=Previous

FUND MANAGER WINDOW DRESSING DOMINATES END OF QUARTER CLOSE

EXPECT JUNE TRADING RANGE TO ABRUPTLY END

Click All Charts to Enlarge

5500 CALL WALL: During June we cautioned of an S&P 500 Trading Range. As such, the boring risks are becoming even more boring as the big 5500 strikes come into "full force". Expect this trading range to soon be abruptly broken!

ONE MORE SMALL LEG??

Next week starts the best trading days and best two-week period of the year as the bar remains super high to short equities ahead of America's birthday. After this positive trading window ends, the market will be vulnerable to a "pre-election correction".

HEDGE FUNDS DUMPING RECORDS AMOUNT OF TECH STOCKS TO RETAIL

Hedge funds have aggressively net sold TMT stocks in the past month, led by Semis & Semi Equip, among which Nvidia (reversing the YTD trend); in fact, as shown below, this month’s net selling by hedge funds in US TMT is tracking to be the largest on Goldman Sachs PB record. Managers also reduced net length in both Consumer Discretionary and Staples, driven by short sales.

Lately we have seen a bid in downside protection. Skew has risen. The crowd is long and are forced to pay up for downside protection. This could get "dynamic" should we ever sell off more violently, as any move slower will get magnified by dealers that will suddenly find themselves in short gamma land (from having sold downside puts)...resulting in "mechanical" selling of deltas as we move lower.

After reaching one of the highest levels since the 1990s, the Risk Appetite Indicator (RAI) has dropped sharply in the past 3 weeks due to a combination of 'risk off' moves across assets. The RAI momentum had one of the largest declines since the 1990s. RAI levels are now back around zero, suggesting that near-term macro conditions will be an important driver of risk appetite.

CHART RIGHT:

US CREDIT PROTECTION

The CDX IG has also caught some bids lately. Chart shows CDX IG vs VIX.

CHART BELOW

SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMISM

The divergence between small business optimism and CEO confidence reached the widest on record in 1H24.

2 - FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS

Trade policy uncertainty has increased to its pre-trade-war peak! It will only get worse and with Risk increasingly being priced in as headwinds to PE ratios.

From the economic data front, a few cracks are emerging. The economic growth surprise index has been weak and is making new lows.

80% of the S&P has entered buyback blackout window.

3 - TECHNICAL ANALYSIS.

MARKET DRIVERS

"AS GO THE FINANCIALS, SO GO THE BANKS: AS GO THE BANKS, SO GO THE MARKETS."

MATASII FINANCIAL STOCK INDEX

We continue to keep an eye on both the Bank and Financial stocks to give us an early signal of market direction. We have been showing the banks over the last few weeks, but the Financials now appear to be giving a clearer signal.

• The MATASII Financial Index stocks is clearly exhibiting a potential continuation triangle pattern.
• The Elliott Wave analysis supports an "E" wave higher as part of a potential final ABCDE topping pattern.
• Momentum (bottom pane) has found long term support and needs to be watched to see if it indeed breaks shorter term overhead resistance, shown by a dotted descending orange momentum trend line.

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

As goes NVDA, so goes the MAG-7, As Goes Mag-7 so goes The Market.

NVDA - Daily

CHART RIGHT: NVDA v the darling of the Dotcom Bubble (for those who recall), CSCO was dominant. It appears that was nothing!

• NVDA found initial support at its 21 DMA after its first down week in 2 months.
• Momentum (Lower pane) broke support at the rising momentum trend line before rallying back to test the underside as upper resistance.
• The Dotted Black Trend line in the MATASII Proprietary Momentum Indicator (lower pane below) is suggesting a potential Divergence has been set up. This is normally seen as a warning to the downside that is ahead if the Divergence isn't removed by a movement higher in Momentum.
• Unless the dotted black Momentum line is decisively broken we can expect NVDA to look for lower support levels.
• At some point the major unfilled gaps (at much lower levels) must be filled. NVDA therefore may no longer become a Short to Intermediate Long Term hold, but rather a position trading stock as others entering the space and force margins to contract. 

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

MAGNIFICENT 7

• The basket of 'Magnificent 7' stocks surged to new highs this week despite weakness in Nvidia.
• We continue to be concerned about the momentum Divergence signal that has been occurring for some time (bottom pane). The Momentum trend line acted as overhead resistance this week. Continued caution advised.

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

"CURRENCY" MARKET (Currency, Gold, Black Gold (Oil) & Bitcoin)

10Y REAL YIELD RATE (TIPS)

Real Rates reached our initial overhead resistance level of 2.25% before falling off hard as part of our expected "x" leg lower (chart right).

We are approaching support and a potential turn upward in Yields.

CONTROL PACKAGE

There are TEN charts we have outlined in prior chart packages, which we will continue to watch closely as a CURRENT Control Set:

1. US DOLLAR -DXY - MONTHLY (CHART LINK)
2. US DOLLAR - DXY - DAILY (CHART LINK)
3. GOLD - DAILY (CHART LINK)
4. GOLD cfd's - DAILY (CHART LINK)
5. GOLD - Integrated - Barrick Gold (CHART LINK)
6. SILVER - DAILY (CHART LINK)
7. OIL - XLE - MONTHLY (CHART LINK)
8. OIL - WTIC - MONTHLY - (CHART LINK)
9. BITCOIN - BTCUSD -WEEKLY (CHART LINK)
10. 10y TIPS - Real Rates - Daily (CHART LINK)

GOLD - cfd - DAILY

• Gold cfd's continue to weaken as inflation pressures weaken.
• The Gold cfd's have broken through the 50 DMA as the 50 DMA "rolls over".
• The rising 100 DMA appears to be the next support test.
• The 38.2% Fibonacci Retracement is the likely support the retracement / consolidation is looking, which is what the Elliott Wave also suggests is a strong likelihood of (matches the iii Wave rising high).
• Momentum support (lower pane) shows gold has found an important near term support line.
• Though the MATASII CROSS has given an initial SELL signal on the Daily chart, (which we have shown in previous reports) we caution it may be short lived!

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

US EQUITY MARKETS

TIME TO HEDGE?

Soc Gen have been very accurate in their volatility predictions. They are out pushing the "hedge" logic:

• Several leading indicators are pointing to elevated risk over the next few months.
• Volatility, rates and cost of financing all are contributing to low hedging costs.
• Elevated political uncertainty is the latest spanner in the works.
• IDEA: They like put spreads on SPX and EuroStoxx 50 indices. In SPX they look at the December 5050/4500 put spread, max pay off 9.77x. Chart above shows the 6 months 95%/85% put spreads.

CHART BELOW: THE NOT SO BULLISH CANDLE

The SPX is putting in a massive shooting star candle at "delicate" levels. This is a rejection candle and you should pay close attention. Note the negative RSI divergence as well. The lower part of the trend channel is short term support area to watch. Also note the 21 day is down around 5480.

CHART RIGHT: The trend of falling ERP has been going on for some time. It is basically telling us we should underweight stocks on a 1 year horizon.



CONTROL PACKAGE

There are FIVE charts we have outlined in prior chart packages that we will continue to watch closely as a CURRENT "control set":

1. The S&P 500 (CHART LINK)
2. The DJIA (CHART LINK)
3. The Russell 2000 through the IWM ETF (CHART LINK)
4. The MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (CHART ABOVE WITH MATASII CROSS - LINK)
5. Nvidia (NVDA) (CHART LINK)

S&P 500 CFD

• The S&P 500 cfd fell slightly most of this week before lifting with Quarter-End Fund Manager "Window Dressing".
• The MATASII Proprietary Momentum Indicator (middle pane) appears to be showing signs of weakening within a Divergence pattern with price and stopped by its overhead momentum resistance trend line.
• We also have fallen off an extreme RSI level.
• A likely test of the 21 DMA may occur next week.

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

S&P 500 - Daily - Our Thought Experiment

OUR CURRENT ASSESSMENT IS THAT THE INTERMEDIATE TERM IS LIKELY TO LOOK LIKE THE FOLLOWING:

NOTE: To reiterate - "the black labeled activity shown below, between now and July, looks like a "Killing Field", where the algos take Day Traders, "Dip Buyers", the "Gamma Guys" and FOMO's all out on stretchers!"

• The S&P fell from its all time high this week looking for potential support AT ITS 21 DMA.
• The MATASII Proprietary Momentum Indicator appears to be showing signs of weakening (lower pane) with firm support quite a bit lower. The Friday pull back did find support at a shorter term Momentum trend line (dotted orange line).
• The Divergence in Momentum (lower pane) needs to be noted along with a clear long term ending wedge.

YOUR DESKTOP / TABLET / PHONE ANNOTATED CHART

Macro Analytics Chart Above:  SUBSCRIBER LINK

S&P 500 - Monthly - Our Thought Experiment

• We continue to move towards our target of 5566 shown here and on our daily chart (above).

STOCK MONITOR: What We Spotted

BOND MARKET

CONTROL PACKAGE

There are FIVE charts we have outlined in prior chart packages that we will continue to watch closely as a CURRENT "control set":

1. The 10Y TREASURY NOTE YIELD - TNX - HOURLY (CHART LINK)
2. The 10Y TREASURY NOTE YIELD - TNX - DAILY (CHART LINK)
3. The 10Y TREASURY NOTE YIELD - TNX - WEEKLY (CHART LINK)
4. The 30Y TREASURY BOND YIELD - TNX - WEEKLY (CHART LINK)
5. REAL RATES (CHART LINK)

FISHER'S EQUATION = 10Y Yield = 10Y INFLATION BE% + REAL % = 2.285% + 2.065% = 4.356%

2YR AUCTION:

• Another week of coupon auctions has begun, and with $70BN in 5Y paper due Wednesday, and $44BN in 7Ys for sale on Thursday, moments ago the Treasury sold $69BN in 2Y paper in a solid auction.
• The high yield of 4.706% was "on the screws" with the When Issued, which was also 4.706% ahead of the 1pm auction deadline. In fact this was the 2nd On The Screws auction this year, following a similar result in January; it was also the lowest 2Y auction yield since March and well below the 4.90% in both April and May.
• The bid to cover jumped from last month's 2.406% (which was the lowest since Nov 2021) to 2.751%, well above the six-auction average of 2.57% and the highest since last July.
• The internals were also solid, with Indirects awarded 65.6%, up from 57.9% in May which was the worst foreign demand since November. And with Directs taking down 20.9%, Dealers were left holding just 13.5%, the lowest since March.
• Overall, a solid auction, yet one which had no impact on secondary pricing levels with the 10Y unchanged after the result, was pretty much right as expected.

5YR AUCTION:

• The 5yr auction was well received. The USD 70bln supply was sold with a high yield of 4.331%, stopping through the when issued by 0.4bps.
• The stop-through was vs. the prior tail of 1.3bps and six auction average of a 0.4bp tail, a sign of strong demand for the auction.
• The Bid-to-Cover, however, came in at 2.35x, better than the prior 2.3x but not as strong as the 2.39x average.
• Nonetheless, the takedown was encouraging with dealers taking a smaller than average proportion at 13.4%, thanks to an increase in both indirect and direct demand.

7YR AUCTION: 

• Overall, the 7yr note auction was met with solid demand.
• The USD 44bln supply was sold with a high yield of 4.276%, stopping through the when issued by 0.3bps, a strong improvement from last month's tail of 1.3bps and better than the six auction average of a 0.5bps tail.
• The Bid-to-Cover came in at 2.58x, above the prior 2.43x and average of 2.53x, while the breakdown was also encouraging.
• Both direct and indirect demand improved above averages, seeing dealers (forced surplus buyers) take just 11.9% of the auction, down from May's 17% and beneath the 15% average.

10Y UST - TNX - Hourly

• The TNX rose strongly this week breaking above its144 EMA to the upper trend line of a long term falling trend channel.
• Importantly in the near term is that Momentum (lower pane) appears to have reached a longer term resistance level.

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