One Question For 2023: Have Markets Bottomed Yet?

BY QUOTH THE RAVEN

Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance

Friend of Fringe Finance and well known financial news contributor - as well as 38 year veteran of markets - Kenny Polcari has been kind enough to share his most recent thoughts on the market with our readers. Today, the theme was how markets will trade on the last day of the year - and, more importantly, what are we in store for heading into the new year?

For those who aren’t familiar with Kenny or don’t recognize him from TV, he is Managing Partner of Kace Capital Advisors and Chief Market Strategist at SlateStone Wealth. He started his career on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as an institutional broker back in the early eighties when the march of electronic trading was already taking its first steps, and the great bull was first learning to run.

Now, Have Markets Finally Bottomed Yet?

The whiplash continues, and no one should be surprised that as we move into the final trading day of the year, stocks rallied.

But it isn’t really going to make that much of a difference – we are on track to record the worst year for stocks since the 2008 Great Recession.

The Dow ended Thursday solidly higher, gaining 345 pts or 1%, the S&P closed up 66 pts or 1.7%, the Nasdaq added 265 pts or 2.6%, the Russell gained 45 pts or 2.6% while the Transports added nearly 200 pts or 1.5%.

Why the move higher? Well, as I’ve said, at this point the moves are not necessarily ‘explainable’ (but take your pick – because you could craft almost any argument you wanted). You can’t say that one day the world is ending and then on the next day say it’s all good.

The markets and the economy remain skittish, technically they have suffered and need time to heal, they can turn on dime (as evidenced) and every single concern from 2022 is still out there: trade, the Fed, interest rates, the Fed’s balance sheet, resurging Covid in China, slowing global growth, Q4 earnings upcoming and the continued slowdown in earnings heading into Q1 2023. Either way, high frequency traders, quant types and algos continue to run roughshod over the market. Humans are beginning to settle down a bit - they’re looking at what took place in 2022 and seeing real value and opportunity into 2023. Stocks that started the year as darlings and favorites are now nothing more than the “kid that no one wanted on their gym team at school”. And while I’m not “bashing” technology names, what I am saying is that we are in a very different place than we were a year ago. With trading going into the end of the year, there are a number of things going on...(READ THIS FULL NOTE HERE).

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