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market vibes

Julyy 11…)

“I never have more than one bag at a time. I think one is already quite enough.” Jane Birkin

No economic data releases today. WASDE reports end stocks and yeilds for grains at noon EDT. Baker Hughes rig count at 1:00 PM EDT

In the news

Jane Birkin’s original Hermès bag sold for 8.5 million euros to a collector in Paris yesterday, the highest on record for a fashion item, according to Sotheby’s. NVIDIA and Bitcoin made all-time highs yesterday. Earlier in the week, NDX and S&P made all-time highs.

On July 11, 2024, NDX futures made a high for the year and fell circa 4,000 points, or 20%, in three weeks. On July 17, 2024, S&P topped out and went precipitously lower as well. On July 18, 2023, NDX made a high for the year at 18,000 and fell 12% for four months. Seven days later, the FOMC hiked rates for the last time to 5.25–5.50%.

The latter half of July has been unkind to the stock market recently. Last year, there was immense pressure on the FOMC to cut rates. However, the source of stress, later understood to be the reason Powell did not cut, was the yen carry trade, which is not a problem today.

The dollar is a problem in July 2025, but a different one, and it adds some color to the Fed Chair’s reluctance to cut this year. The stock market is at the top of one of the most volatile quarters in history, and other markets have been unstable; crude oil, for instance, and the Treasury bond market is managing record debt.

Technically, DXY is transitioning from a downtrend to a period of horizontal activity, similar to the April–May range. it’s through the T line but I don’t think a horizontal move qualifies as a trend reversal.

We are going to tour a number of time samples and markets this morning to create a visual image of the greater market as a whole. Think of each chart is a word or phrase in a declarative statement.