Minutes Digest for Jan 14 2021

Bifurcated is the word smart people use for "mixed." And mixed it is today, with the IWM small-cap fund flirting with a 2% gain while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fund, QQQ, down on the day.

That always raises 2 questions: 1) Has it ever happened before?, and 2) Does it mean anything?

Well, "yes" and "maybe." SPY rose over the next week 8 out of 9 times, but fell back over the medium-term, thanks to most of these triggering during bear markets.

It ended up being a bit more negative for IWM than QQQ.

Jobless claims came in much worse than expected. Since markets took off in October, though, misses have been just another excuse to buy, with the S&P losing only once during the bulk of the day, and even that was just barely, as a 0.4% loss into the open was mostly erased during the day.

As always, it's often helpful to watch and see if we see a change. If the narrative has been bad-news-is-good-because-stimmy, and with the new administration due to announce a massive package tonight, then a drop in stocks today will be one of the first signs that just maybe, the "good" news has been priced in.

Yields were a mixed bag, though the couple of times they dipped after the open, they rose as the sessions wore on.