After The Fact

Well I was wrong and the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates yesterday.  Stocks are selling off this morning based on the futures but that needs to be viewed against the nearly 3% rise we'd seen in stocks this week prior to yesterday's decision.  Profit taking was likely going to happen irregardless of what they did yesterday. The Feds seemed to take more stock in global economic weakness than the strength here at home.  They did note that there were currently no inflationary pressures here in the US.  They also left the door open to raise rates at their October and December meetings should that be necessary.  Very few market watchers expect that to occur this year.  

Now that this is out of the way we can go about our normal lives obsessing about the next big bad event which will likely be some jobs number, the Fed's October meeting or the likelihood of a government shutdown over the defunding of Planned Parenthood.  Stocks were overbought in the short run and this provides an excuse to take some profits.  Stocks hitting resistance levels yesterday also didn't help.  Seasonal patterns are also still negative.  I think we're still in that basing stage where stocks are trying to establish a bottom and the next base from which to move forward.  This chop is all part of that process.  We'll look t some charts next week to try and discern where we might be headed going into the end of the year.