You said you love charts. So here are more charts! 📈📊
You said you love charts. So here are more charts! 📈📊
Plus a charted review of the macro crosscurrents 🔀
📈 Stocks rallied to all-time highs, with the S&P 500 setting an intraday high of 5,767.37 and a closing high of 5,745.37 on Thursday. For the week, the S&P rose 0.6% to end at 5,738.17. The index is now up 20.3% year to date and up 60.4% from its October 12, 2022 closing low of 3,577.03.
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TKer subscribers love charts.
And why wouldn’t you? Thoughtful investors care about data, and there’s no better way to communicate data than through a great chart.
I got lots of positive feedback about last week’s free newsletter: “10 charts to consider with stocks at all-time highs.“ Many of you are catching on to why people sign up for the paid subscription. 😉
Here are some more charts from the September reports, blogs, and social media posts.
Consumer and business finances are healthy 🤑
The customers in the economy have the capacity to spend, which means economic activity should keep churning.
“As is well known, household and corporate balance sheets are strong,” Deutsche Bank’s Binky Chadha wrote in a Sept. 12 note. “This is very different from past down cycles.“
You’ll continue to read unsettling news headlines about how the absolute levels of debt are historically high. But what actually matters is how that debt measures relative to the capacity to service that debt, which is historically strong.
And by the way, even though sentiment surveys suggest consumers and business managers are more pessimistic than usual, the hard data confirm that they all continue to spend — probably because they have the financial capacity to do so.
For more, read: Why consumers and businesses will prevent any slowdown from becoming economic calamity 💰, There's more to the story than 'excess savings are gone' 🤔, and We're taking that vacation whether we like it or not 🛫
The stock market decouples from Trump 🔀
It’s not uncommon to hear people argue that Donald Trump’s policy platform would be more favorable for the stock market than his Democrat opponent. Indeed, for a while it seemed that the stock market would move higher as Trump’s odds of winning the November presidential election improved.
“This relationship has broken down recently,” RBC’s Lori Calvasina observed in her September 23 research note.
This type of divergence isn’t totally unprecedented. For example, history shows that even amid corporate tax reform that led to higher tax rates, corporations eventually figured out how to grow earnings. And their stock prices followed suit.
Just because the person who ends up in the White House may be less business friendly than their opponent doesn’t mean that businesses will fail to grow earnings.
For more, read: The truth about corporate tax reform and earnings, charted 📈 and On presidents, the stock market, and the big picture for investors 🖼
Compound interest is more powerful than any political party 💪
An investor who only invested in the stock market when a Democrat was president has done marginally better than the investor who only invested when a Republican was president.
However, both got totally smoked by the investor who stayed invested regardless of who occupied the White House. From BlackRock’s Gargi Chaudhuri: “At the index level, staying invested has been more important than which party wins the presidency. Investors who held the course as political winds changed earned nearly double those who shifted their strategy based on the election in the last decade — a trend only magnified over the very long term.”
This is a reminder that time in the market beats timing the market. You don’t want to miss out on the incredible wealth generating power of compound interest.
For more, read: On presidents, the stock market, and the big picture for investors 🖼 and Smart people agree that the best investing wisdom shares a common theme 🧐
U.S. companies are crushing it 🇺🇸
Teeing off Mario Draghi’s controversial paper on European competitiveness, Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid shared an interesting observation about U.S. vs. European companies in his Chart of the Day on Wednesday. From his note (emphasis added):
Earlier this month, Mario Draghi’s long-awaited report on European Union competitiveness contained an abundance of recommendations for the continent, including how it needed to spend up to €800bn extra a year to become more competitive with the US and China. Buried in the report was a fascinating line that said “...there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over €100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six US companies with a valuation above €1 trillion have been created in this period.” … I thought it would be worth graphically representing Draghi’s point. Today’s CoTD shows the top 25 companies by size in the S&P 500 and Stoxx 600 against the year the companies' origins can be traced. There is some nuance here. For example, ASML is the third largest EU company and although it was incorporated in 1984, it emerged from a joint venture out of ASM (1968) and Phillips (1891). So the company wasn’t started from scratch within the last 50 years.“
As I wrote in the April 21 TKer: “There’s clearly something special going on right now in the U.S. that helps explain why its stock market has performed so well on the global stage. Maybe it’s the culture of innovation. Maybe it’s the business-friendly regulation. Maybe it’s the relatively strong corporate governance practices. Maybe it’s how shareholders incentivize company executives and employees. Whatever it is, it’s helping to drive earnings higher. As a result, investing in the U.S. stock market has been a winning trade for a long time, and there’s little reason to believe it won’t continue to be in the years to come.“
For more, read: You don't have to look outside U.S. stocks for international exposure 🌎, Two important notes about non-US stock markets 🌍, and 4 key observations about the U.S. stock market to remember 📊
There are no borders in business 🌍
Sure, U.S. companies probably benefit from operating in the largest economy in the world. But if you’re a big company, then you probably do at least some business outside of your home country.
In fact, as this chart from JPMorgan shows, publicly traded companies in the U.K., Europe, and Japan generate most of their revenue abroad.
This is a reminder that you don’t necessarily have to buy stocks outside of your home country to get foreign exposure. If you want exposure to foreign forms of management and corporate governance, that’s another story.
For more, read: You don't have to look outside U.S. stocks for international exposure 🌎 and Two important notes about non-US stock markets 🌍
Are more job openings coming? 💼
The labor market has been cooling. Notably, the once massive tailwind of excess job openings has faded.
But are we about to get a rebound in job openings?
“The stock price of staffing firms points to a rebound in job openings,” Apollo’s Torsten Slok wrote in his chartbook shared on September 21.
I can’t say this is the most compelling case for a recovery in job openings. After all, it’s just one metric, and it’s up against a lot of data that point to a labor market slowdown.
But who knows? Maybe this recent rate cut from the Fed will spark another labor market boom.
For more, read: A once massive economic tailwind has faded 💨 and The labor market is cooling 💼
Nvidia is no Cisco 🤖
Every once in a while, you’ll hear someone compare today’s AI boom to yesterday’s Dotcom bubble. And sometimes, people will argue this by comparing the current trajectory of Nvidia’s stock price to that of Cisco back in the day.
One thing to note about the AI boom is that there’s tangible demand for the technology. And that’s translating into meaningful earnings growth for companies like Nvidia. And those earnings have made for a more palatable valuation story.
“Nvidia bears no resemblance to dot-com market leaders like Cisco (see below) whose P/E multiple also soared but without earnings to go with it,” JPMorgan’s Michael Cembalest observed in his September 3 note.
Analysts across industry groups see AI technology boosting profit margins for the companies they cover. Unfortunately, we’ll only know in hindsight if AI delivers all that we hope for.
For more, read: Companies everywhere confirm AI is happening 🤖 and Some thoughts on artificial intelligence... 🤖
What labor costs look like across industries 👷♀️
Every industry is unique in terms of how much it costs to staff a company to keep operations running. This is important to understand when analyzing the impact of changes in wage costs.
“Our analysis of the latest company filings reveals that S&P 500 labor costs equal 12% of total revenues for the aggregate index and 14% of revenues for the median stock,” Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin wrote in his September 20 note. “Exposure to labor costs vary at the sector level, from 20% in Industrials to 3% in Energy.”
For more, read: Promising signs for productivity ⚙️
The bottom line 💸
“The good news is that profit expectations continue to rise,” Carson Group’s Sonu Varghese wrote on Wednesday. “Expected earnings per share for the S&P 500 over the next 12 months is now at $266, about 10% higher than it was at the end of last year.”
“As our friend Sam Ro (who writes the TKer Substack), says, earnings are the most important driver of stock prices,” he added.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
For more, read: The stock market's bottom line is looking up 👍 and Earnings are the most important driver of stock prices💰
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Related from TKer:
Watch! 📺
🔊 I caught up with Blake Millard, director of investments for Sandbox Financial and author of The Sandbox Daily newsletter! We talked about stock market returns, the investing landscape, economic cycles, and much more! Watch the conversation on YouTube! And sign up for The Sandbox Daily. It’s one of the newsletters I read all the time!
Reviewing the macro crosscurrents 🔀
There were a few notable data points and macroeconomic developments from last week to consider:
🎈 Inflation trends are cool. The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index in August was up 2.2% from a year ago, down from July’s 2.5% rate. The core PCE price index — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation — was up 2.7% during the month, near its lowest level since March 2021.
On a month over month basis, the core PCE price index was up 0.1%, effectively down from the 0.2% rate in the previous month. If you annualized the rolling three-month and six-month figures, the core PCE price index was up 2.1% and 2.4%, respectively.
Inflation rates continue to hover near the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%, which has given the central bank the flexibility to cut rates as it addresses other developing issues in the economy.
For more on inflation and the outlook for monetary policy, read: The Fed closes a chapter with a rate cut ✂️ and The other side of the Fed's inflation 'mistake' 🧐
🛍️ Consumers are spending. According to BEA data, personal consumption expenditures increased 0.2% month over month in August to a record annual rate of $19.9 trillion.
Adjusted for inflation, real personal consumption expenditures rose by 0.1%.
For more on resilient spending, read: The state of the American consumer in a single quote 🔊 and There's more to the story than 'excess savings are gone' 🤔
💳 Card spending data is holding up. From JPMorgan: “As of 19 Sep 2024, our Chase Consumer Card spending data (unadjusted) was 0.7% above the same day last year. Based on the Chase Consumer Card data through 19 Sep 2024, our estimate of the U.S. Census September control measure of retail sales m/m is 0.19%.“
From Bank of America: “Total card spending per HH was unchanged y/y in the week ending Sep 21, according to BAC aggregated credit & debit card data. Within sectors we report, online electronics saw the biggest increase y/y since last week. And, general merchandise, home improvement, department store, entertainment and gas saw big declines since last week.”
For more on personal consumption, read: The state of the American consumer in a single quote 🔊
💼 Unemployment claims fall. Initial claims for unemployment benefits declined to 218,000 during the week ending September 21, down from 222,000 the week prior. This metric continues to be at levels historically associated with economic growth.
For more on the labor market, read: The labor market is cooling 💼
🤷🏻♂️ Consumer vibes are meh. From the University of Michigan’s September Surveys of Consumers: “While sentiment remains below its historical average in part due to frustration over high prices, consumers are fully aware that inflation has continued to slow. Sentiment appears to be building some momentum as consumers’ expectations for the economy brighten. At the same time, many consumers continue to report that their expectations hinge on the results of the upcoming election. Relative to August, consumers across political parties are increasingly expecting a Harris presidency, though about two-thirds of Republicans still expect Trump to win.“
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell in September. From the firm’s Dana Peterson: “September’s decline was the largest since August 2021 and all five components of the Index deteriorated. Consumers’ assessments of current business conditions turned negative while views of the current labor market situation softened further. Consumers were also more pessimistic about future labor market conditions and less positive about future business conditions and future income.“
More from Peterson: “The deterioration across the Index’s main components likely reflected consumers concerns about the labor market and reactions to fewer hours, slower payroll increases, fewer job openings — even if the labor market remains quite healthy, with low unemployment, few layoffs and elevated wages. The proportion of consumers anticipating a recession over the next 12 months remained low but there was a slight uptick in the percentage of consumers believing the economy was already in recession.“
Indeed: “Consumers’ appraisals of the labor market deteriorated in September. 30.9% of consumers said jobs were ‘plentiful,’ down from 32.7% in August. 18.3% of consumers said jobs were ‘hard to get,’ up from 16.8%.”
Many economists monitor the spread between these two percentages (a.k.a., the labor market differential), and it’s been reflecting a cooling labor market.
Weak consumer sentiment readings appear to contradict resilient consumer spending data.
For more on this contradiction, read: What consumers do > what consumers say 🙊 and We're taking that vacation whether we like it or not 🛫
⛽️ Gas prices stay cool. From AAA: “The national average for a gallon of gas wobbled by a few cents before ending up where it started a week ago at $3.22. Pump prices have been sliding recently, but the rapid intensification of Hurricane Helene appears to be having an effect.”
For more on energy prices, read: Higher oil prices meant something different in the past 🛢️
🏘️ New home sales decline. Sales of newly built homes fell 4.7% in August to an annualized rate of 716,000 units.
🏠 Home prices rise. According to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index, home prices rose 0.2% month-over-month in July. From S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Brian Luke: “While the S&P 500 has achieved 39 record highs and the S&P GSCI Gold TR hit 35 record highs, housing is following a similar trajectory. The growth has come at a cost, with all but two markets decelerating last month, eight markets seeing monthly declines, and the slowest annual growth nationally in 2024. Overall, the indices continue to grow at a rate that exceeds long-run averages after accounting for inflation.”
For more on home prices, read: Why home prices and rents are creating all sorts of confusion about inflation 😖
🏠 Mortgage rates fall. According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.08%, down from 6.09% last week. From Freddie Mac: “Although this week’s decline was slight, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage trended down to its lowest level in two years. Given the downward trajectory of rates, refinance activity continues to pick up, creating opportunities for many homeowners to trim their monthly mortgage payment. Meanwhile, many looking to purchase a home are playing the waiting game to see if rates decrease further as additional economic data is released over the next several weeks.”
There are 146 million housing units in the U.S., of which 86 million are owner-occupied and 39% of which are mortgage-free. Of those carrying mortgage debt, almost all have fixed-rate mortgages, and most of those mortgages have rates that were locked in before rates surged from 2021 lows. All of this is to say: Most homeowners are not particularly sensitive to movements in home prices or mortgage rates.
For more on mortgages and home prices, read: Why home prices and rents are creating all sorts of confusion about inflation 😖
🏚 Mortgage payments are coming down. From Bloomberg’s Michael McDonough, here’s the average monthly mortgage payment for a new buyer of a $500,000 house based on prevailing mortgage rates.
💰 Weekly mortgage applications rise. From Mortgage Bankers Association’s Joel Kan: “Mortgage applications increased to their highest level since July 2022, boosted by a 20% increase in refinance applications after a large increase the prior week. … As a result of lower rates, week-over-week gains for both conventional and government refinance applications increased sharply. The refinance share of applications is now at 55.7%t, and while the level of refinance activity is still modest compared to prior refi waves, they now account for the majority of applications, given the seasonal slowdown in purchase activity.“
🏭 Business investment activity ticks higher. Orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft — a.k.a. core capex or business investment — increased 0.2% to $73.7 billion in August.
Core capex orders are a leading indicator, meaning they foretell economic activity down the road. While the growth rate has leveled off a bit, they continue to signal economic strength in the months to come.
For more, read: The economy has gone from very hot to pretty good 😎 and 'Check yourself' as the data zig zags ↯
👍 Survey signals growth. From S&P Global’s September U.S. PMI: “The early survey indicators for September point to an economy that continues to grow at a solid pace, albeit with a weakened manufacturing sector and intensifying political uncertainty acting as substantial headwinds. A reacceleration of inflation is meanwhile also signalled, suggesting the Fed cannot totally shift its focus away from its inflation target as it seeks to sustain the economic upturn. The sustained robust expansion of output signaled by the PMI in September is consistent with a healthy annualized rate of GDP growth of 2.2% in the third quarter.”
Keep in mind that during times of perceived stress, soft survey data tends to be more exaggerated than actual hard data.
For more on this, read: What businesses do > what businesses say 🙊
🇺🇸 Most U.S. states are still growing. From the Philly Fed’s August State Coincident Indexes report: "Over the past three months, the indexes increased in 34 states, decreased in 13 states, and remained stable in three, for a three-month diffusion index of 42. Additionally, in the past month, the indexes increased in 23 states, decreased in 17 states, and remained stable in 10, for a one-month diffusion index of 12.”
For more on economic growth, read: Economic growth: Slowdown, recession, or something else? 🇺🇸
📈 Near-term GDP growth estimates remain positive. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model sees real GDP growth climbing at a 2.9% rate in Q3.
For more on economic growth, read: Economic growth: Slowdown, recession, or something else? 🇺🇸
🤦🏻♂️ The “technical recession” of 2022 didn’t happen. In mid-2022, confusion abounded on the state of the economy. Some pundits claimed that the economy had gone into recession. Specifically, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the annualized pace of GDP growth was negative in Q2 of 2022, which followed a negative print in Q1.
Fast forward to present day — more than two years later. On Thursday, the BEA released an update on U.S. GDP. Among other things, it flipped its Q2 2022 GDP growth estimate to positive from negative.
For more, read: The already mislabeled 'recession' of 2022 didn't happen, new data shows 🤦🏻♂️
Putting it all together 🤔
We continue to get evidence that we are experiencing a bullish “Goldilocks” soft landing scenario where inflation cools to manageable levels without the economy having to sink into recession.
This comes as the Federal Reserve continues to employ very tight monetary policy in its ongoing effort to get inflation under control. Though, with inflation rates having come down significantly from their 2022 highs, the Fed has taken a less hawkish stance in recent months — even cutting interest rates.
It would take more rate cuts before we’d characterize monetary policy as being loose or even neutral, which means we should be prepared for relatively tight financial conditions (e.g., higher interest rates, tighter lending standards, and lower stock valuations) to linger. All this means monetary policy will be relatively unfriendly to markets for the time being, and the risk the economy slips into a recession will be relatively elevated.
At the same time, we also know that stocks are discounting mechanisms — meaning that prices will have bottomed before the Fed signals a major dovish turn in monetary policy.
Also, it’s important to remember that while recession risks may be elevated, consumers are coming from a very strong financial position. Unemployed people are getting jobs, and those with jobs are getting raises.
Similarly, business finances are healthy as many corporations locked in low interest rates on their debt in recent years. Even as the threat of higher debt servicing costs looms, elevated profit margins give corporations room to absorb higher costs.
At this point, any downturn is unlikely to turn into economic calamity given that the financial health of consumers and businesses remains very strong.
And as always, long-term investors should remember that recessions and bear markets are just part of the deal when you enter the stock market with the aim of generating long-term returns. While markets have recently had some bumpy years, the long-run outlook for stocks remains positive.
For more on how the macro story is evolving, check out the the previous TKer macro crosscurrents »
Key insights about the stock market 📈
Here’s a roundup of some of TKer’s most talked-about paid and free newsletters about the stock market. All of the headlines are hyperlinked to the archived pieces.
10 truths about the stock market 📈
The stock market can be an intimidating place: It’s real money on the line, there’s an overwhelming amount of information, and people have lost fortunes in it very quickly. But it’s also a place where thoughtful investors have long accumulated a lot of wealth. The primary difference between those two outlooks is related to misconceptions about the stock market that can lead people to make poor investment decisions.
The makeup of the S&P 500 is constantly changing 🔀
Passive investing is a concept usually associated with buying and holding a fund that tracks an index. And no passive investment strategy has attracted as much attention as buying an S&P 500 index fund. However, the S&P 500 — an index of 500 of the largest U.S. companies — is anything but a static set of 500 stocks.
The key driver of stock prices: Earnings💰
For investors, anything you can ever learn about a company matters only if it also tells you something about earnings. That’s because long-term moves in a stock can ultimately be explained by the underlying company’s earnings, expectations for earnings, and uncertainty about those expectations for earnings. Over time, the relationship between stock prices and earnings have a very tight statistical relationship.
Stomach-churning stock market sell-offs are normal🎢
Investors should always be mentally prepared for some big sell-offs in the stock market. It’s part of the deal when you invest in an asset class that is sensitive to the constant flow of good and bad news. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has seen an average annual max drawdown (i.e., the biggest intra-year sell-off) of 14%.
High and rising interest rates don't spell doom for stocks👍
Generally speaking, rising interest rates are not welcome news for the economy and the stock market. They represent higher financing costs for businesses and consumers. All other things being equal, rising rates represent a hindrance to growth. However, the world is complicated, and this narrative comes with a lot of nuance. One big counterintuitive piece to this narrative is that historically, stocks have actually performed well during periods of rising interest rates.
How stocks performed when the yield curve inverted ⚠️
There’ve been lots of talk about the “yield curve inversion,” with media outlets playing up that this bond market phenomenon may be signaling a recession. Admittedly, yield curve inversions have a pretty good track record of being followed by recessions, and recessions usually come with significant market sell-offs. But experts also caution against concluding that inverted yield curves are bulletproof leading indicators.
How the stock market performed around recessions 📉📈
Every recession in history was different. And the range of stock performance around them varied greatly. There are two things worth noting. First, recessions have always been accompanied by a significant drawdown in stock prices. Second, the stock market bottomed and inflected upward long before recessions ended.
In the stock market, time pays ⏳
Since 1928, the S&P 500 generated a positive total return more than 89% of the time over all five-year periods. Those are pretty good odds. When you extend the timeframe to 20 years, you’ll see that there’s never been a period where the S&P 500 didn’t generate a positive return.
What a strong dollar means for stocks 👑
While a strong dollar may be great news for Americans vacationing abroad and U.S. businesses importing goods from overseas, it’s a headwind for multinational U.S.-based corporations doing business in non-U.S. markets.
Economy ≠ Stock Market 🤷♂️
The stock market sorta reflects the economy. But also, not really. The S&P 500 is more about the manufacture and sale of goods. U.S. GDP is more about providing services.
Stanley Druckenmiller's No. 1 piece of advice for novice investors 🧐
…you don't want to buy them when earnings are great, because what are they doing when their earnings are great? They go out and expand capacity. Three or four years later, there's overcapacity and they're losing money. What about when they're losing money? Well, then they’ve stopped building capacity. So three or four years later, capacity will have shrunk and their profit margins will be way up. So, you always have to sort of imagine the world the way it's going to be in 18 to 24 months as opposed to now. If you buy it now, you're buying into every single fad every single moment. Whereas if you envision the future, you're trying to imagine how that might be reflected differently in security prices.
Peter Lynch made a remarkably prescient market observation in 1994 🎯
Some event will come out of left field, and the market will go down, or the market will go up. Volatility will occur. Markets will continue to have these ups and downs. … Basic corporate profits have grown about 8% a year historically. So, corporate profits double about every nine years. The stock market ought to double about every nine years… The next 500 points, the next 600 points — I don’t know which way they’ll go… They’ll double again in eight or nine years after that. Because profits go up 8% a year, and stocks will follow. That's all there is to it.
Warren Buffett's 'fourth law of motion' 📉
Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac’s talents didn’t extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.” If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.
Most pros can’t beat the market 🥊
According to S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI), 59.7% of U.S. large-cap equity fund managers underperformed the S&P 500 in 2023. As you stretch the time horizon, the numbers get even more dismal. Over a three-year period, 79.8% underperformed. Over a 10-year period, 87.4% underperformed. And over a 20-year period, 93% underperformed. This 2023 performance follows 13 consecutive years in which the majority of fund managers in this category have lagged the index.
Proof that 'past performance is no guarantee of future results' 📊
S&P Dow Jones Indices found that funds beat their benchmark in a given year are rarely able to continue outperforming in subsequent years. For example, 334 large-cap equity funds were in the top half of performance in 2021. Of those funds, 58.7% came in the top half again in 2022. But just 6.9% were able to extend that streak through 2023. If you set the bar even higher and consider those in the top quartile of performance, just 20.1% of 164 large-cap funds remained in the top quartile in 2022. No large-cap funds were able to stay in the top quartile for the three consecutive years ending in 2023.
The odds are stacked against stock pickers 🎲
Picking stocks in an attempt to beat market averages is an incredibly challenging and sometimes money-losing effort. In fact, most professional stock pickers aren’t able to do this on a consistent basis. One of the reasons for this is that most stocks don’t deliver above-average returns. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, only 24% of the stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the average stock’s return from 2000 to 2022. Over this period, the average return on an S&P 500 stock was 390%, while the median stock rose by just 93%.
Amazing as always Sam. One question. While employment is steady, will Hurricane Helene affect the jobs report like the last storm in Texas did? If we see a spike in unemployment, will the market react positively because a larger rate cut is coming? Will it act negatively thinking this is a sign of a recession? Or will it discount it because there is alot of time for things to moderate before the next Fed meeting? I think the market falls, digests the info, then rises just like after the Texas storm. I hope that's not the case. Thanks again!