Click the calendar image to enlarge it, then scroll down to see what's coming down the pipe the week of May 15:<\/p>\n
What a week! We survived:<\/p>\n The major indices were mostly down this week, but the QQQ's managed to squeeze into the green.<\/p>\n (data as of 2 p.m. Friday)<\/em><\/p>\n And year-to-date, the QQQ's<\/strong> are still crushing the other big ETFs thanks to huge moves in big tech stocks like Apple<\/strong> (AAPL), Tesla<\/strong> (TSLA), Nvidia<\/strong> (NVDA), and Microsoft<\/strong> (MSFT). <\/p>\n Even with Friday's ugly outside day, it's been pretty smooth sailing this year:<\/p>\n Now let's look forward to next week.<\/p>\n The US economic calendar picks up next week with:<\/p>\n The big discussion on the Street is whether the Fed can slow the economy without breaking it.<\/p>\n So everyone will be watching these reports for a better idea of where the US economy stands.<\/p>\n After this week's light CPI and PPI reports, traders are pricing in a slightly higher probability of a Fed Rate hike at the June 14 meeting.<\/p>\n As of Friday afternoon, traders were pricing in a 16.6% probability of a June rate hike, up from 10.7% last week. That's thanks to this week's light CPI and PPI reports, which showed continued moderation in inflationary pressures.<\/p>\n Only a moron would argue that inflation is low.<\/p>\n But it is less awful.<\/p>\n And overseas, we get:<\/p>\n Earnings season is pretty much done, but we've got some big retail reports on tap:<\/p>\n This earnings season has been all over the place for consumer stocks.<\/p>\n We've seen some huge hits (like Apple) and some big misses (like Disney)<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Walmart and Target should give us fresh insights on the consumer.<\/p>\n Outside of retail, we have Baidu<\/strong> (BIDU) on Tuesday, Cisco<\/strong> on Wednesday (CSCO), and Applied Materials<\/strong> (AMAT) on Thursday.<\/p>\n As we noted last week, earnings season is pretty strong relative to expectations.<\/p>\n According to FactSet<\/a>, 92% of S&P 500 companies have reported, and so far:<\/p>\n So earnings stink, but they're not as bad as expected.<\/p>\n Which is why the market's been up this year.<\/p>\n Investors and traders remain remarkably bearish despite the market's stability.<\/p>\n According to AAII<\/a>, just 29.4% of investors are bullish.<\/p>\n That's up from 24.1% the past two weeks, but well below the 37.5% long-term average.<\/p>\n AAII said “pessimism among individual investors stayed above average for the 12th consecutive week.”<\/p>\n Click to enlarge<\/em><\/p>\n It's the same old story.<\/p>\n Housing<\/strong> (ITB) is winning which it's not supposed to do in a rising rate environment, which could be related to traders pricing in rate cuts later this year.<\/p>\n And tech is pretty strong with XLK<\/strong>, SMH<\/strong>, and ARKK<\/strong> all up 20% YTD.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Natural Gas<\/strong> (UNG), Banks<\/strong> (XLF, KRE), Energy<\/strong> (XLE, OIH), and Cannabis<\/strong> (MSOS) have lagged, big time.<\/p>\n According to Unusual Whales, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville is quite the active options trader:<\/p>\n BREAKING: Senator Tommy Tuberville has just sold millions in stock and options.He sold puts on $TXN<\/a>, $KR<\/a>, $HPQ<\/a>, $PARA<\/a>, $AMT<\/a>, and sold 50k in puts on $TSLA<\/a>, $CSCO<\/a> and $MSFT<\/a>And much more.He appears to using options while in Congress.Wild.<\/p>\n \u2014 unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) May 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n [tcb-script async=”” src=”https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″][\/tcb-script]\n Interestingly, two opposing members of Congress — Matt Gaetz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are teaming up to ban members of Congress from trading or owning stocks.<\/p>\n Because Paul Tudor Jones or Richard Dennis have nothing on this crew:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/What-to-Watch-This-Week-9.png\" "\\"What")
<\/span><\/p>\nThe Week in Review…<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/weekly-etf-performance-2023-05-12.png\" "\\"weekly-etf-performance-2023-05-12\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/koyfin_20230512_025241895.png\" "\\"koyfin_20230512_025241895\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nA Busier Stream of Econ Data<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Retail Earnings Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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So How Has Earnings Season Been?<\/h2>\n
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Traders Are Still in a Bad Mood<\/h2>\n
A Look at Sector Performance in 2023:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.t3live.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/2023-YTD-Return-Major-Sector-ETFs-20.png\" "\\"2023")
<\/span><\/p>\nFactoid of the Week: The Best Traders on Earth are in the US Congress<\/h2>\n
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![\"\ud83d\udea8\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/14.0.0\/svg\/1f6a8.svg\")
BREAKINGI have just released the full trading report on politicians in 2022.Despite 2022 being the worst market since 2008, both Democrats & Republicans beat the market.Many politicians individually beat the market.And many made unusual trades resulting in huge gains. pic.twitter.com\/qDWIJB2spk<\/a><\/p>\n