Jan 23 late update

Monoline problem addressed, stocks suddenly oversold as that risk fades.

Most earning look strong. Guidance may be soft but that’s at least partially a function of the expectation of a recession as per the media reporting and will get ignored as those fears continue to fade.

If initial claims tomorrow are around 325,000 as expected, and continuing claims are reasonably stable, it will indicate the labor markets may not have deteriorated from Q4 as feared.

Existing home sales are still winter numbers, but could surprise on the upside as anecdotal reports indicate aggressive selling of excess inventories.

The Fed and the stock market share the same fears. As the market’s fears fade so will the Fed’s, and the markets and the Fed could start to take away a the cut now priced in for the meeting next week.

This leaves FF futures and ED futures maybe 100 bp over priced, as the improving outlook will price in the possibility that fewer future cuts will be appropriate.

And the fiscal package is growing. This is the first time I’ve ever seen the Fed encouraging adding to the deficit, and in an election year it’s hard to imagine Congress and the President not taking advantage of that opening and in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation expanding the package so all get their favorite tax cut and spending initiative. $250-300 billion wouldn’t surprise me. And they need to do it quick before it’s discovered there is no recession problem, but instead an inflation problem.

Also note WTI and Brent crude have converged quite a bit in the sell off, which probably means WTI was sold off by speculators, and a bounce back to the Saudi’s target price (whatever that is) can be expected.

Exports are also likely to be underestimated in next week’s GDP preview, so there’s a good chance it will be revised up when December trade numbers are announced in February.

And without a rise in unemployment and a meaningful drop in personal income housing can come back very quickly from a very low base. Affordability is up nicely, and the production of new homes is down by maybe a million vs last year.