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| By Gavin Magor |
As much as I prefer not to pay close attention to the Federal Reserve’s every move, this week was an important one for the markets.
Not so much on a day-to-day basis … but with respect to preparing for what might be around the corner.
It dawned on me last Wednesday after listening to Chairman Jay Powell that our jobs might be more similar than I thought: We both walk very fine lines sometimes.
Thankfully, I get to make a positive impact here at Weiss Ratings, ensuring the integrity of our research and ratings and the trading strategies built from them. But I don’t have to consider the impact of my work on the economy, mortgages, savings, consumer prices and more.
So, anytime I get frustrated with the “will they or won’t they” interest-rate dance, I remind myself to give JPOW his due.
His delicate balancing act is predicated on raising interest rates just the right amount over the perfect period of time without sending the economy into recession.
One slip could spell trouble for the entire country, causing untold pain for Americans. Well, you might say he’s dangerously close to that proverbial banana peel.
In recent weeks, we learned that the unemployment rate for June 2024 rose ever so slightly from 4% to 4.1%. I’m not sure how many jobs that 0.1% equals, but it means fewer people are on the payroll.
Not too long ago, we found out that the Gross Domestic Product only expanded at an annualized rate of 1.4% — even slower than 2023’s growth rate of 2.5%.
One senior investment strategy director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management had an interesting take on the GDP numbers: “When you have economic growth at a pace under 2%, that can be considered ‘stall speed.’”
Finally, while inflation numbers continue to edge closer — and very slowly — to Powell’s 2% goal, struggles from stubbornly high prices on stuff that really matters are still very real for consumers.
That said, it was encouraging to see rate cut expectations increase after this week’s newest CPI and PPI numbers.
But if Powell waits too long to lower rates, it could kickstart a recession.
If he does it too soon, inflation could reignite.
Plus, should new data show big gains across the board — GDP, consumer spending, jobs and wages — he might even need to reconsider hiking rates again.
Powell may have the weight of America’s woes on his shoulders, but my responsibility to the reliability of the Weiss Ratings is equally as important.
Whatever comes next in the markets, one very smart move is to get to know our Weiss Ratings stock screener.
To help, I want to bring some amazing technical tools to your attention today.
Time to Get Technical
Say, for example purposes, you wanted to look at some of the major technical indicators for one of 2024’s most talked about stocks, Nvidia (NVDA).
To start, click on the “Pricing” tab. There, you’ll see “Price History” and its “Technical Chart.” If you click on the latter, you’ll see this:
In the above image, you can see that Simple Moving Average is included, among other technical indicators.
You can expand out to a five-year time frame by clicking on the “5y” button. There, you can easily see NVDA’s rapid ascension over the past few years.
You can utilize these amazing features with any stock in the Weiss Ratings database.
Currently, we rate 12,439 stocks. So, there are many names you can conveniently look at.
Cheers!
Gavin
P.S. While we used NVDA as an example to show you our charting tools, it remains one of the most talked-about companies in the world. But no one seems to be talking about its latest $1 trillion pivot. Find out about that here.
