Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Beware the inflationary rally

The attention grabbing headlines of the day were about how the fed flew in to save us all buy buying US treasuries and how the stock market reacted with a big rally. Flew in is a good metaphor because it was Helicopter Ben who arrived throwing cash onto Wall Street. I think its more than worth noting that today's rally in stocks was not as strong as the rally in gold or the euro. In other words, the stocks weren't as strong as the dollar was weak. If you priced the S&P in euros it was actually down today:

Here he is:

Same story with the S&P priced in gold, dropped...

Oh, and here he is again:

Now most people price their wealth in dollars and for this to actually mean anything to your account you'd need to be short euro's or short gold. That being said, the purchasing power of the dollar is falling since all the commodities rallied today. I would note that these charts above show some potential for a slightly further rally. That is, technically speaking, stocks could rally a little more and/or the dollar could strengthen a bit in the next few days before the S&P priced in euros/gold charts hit resistance.

Looking at the S&P priced in dollars, I can see three plausible scenarios going forward and since the extended chart arrows is all the rage right now:

My gut would be with the failed breakout reversal since so many are watching this 800 level and expecting/hoping for it to turn there. I'd expect a break of 800 to suck in many longs and stop out many shorts. That might be just what big sellers are waiting for to unload into. That scenario also allows for this week's op ex momentum to continue. We'll see, but I find the breakout and run scenario pretty much ridiculous. Reguarding the printing of cash to buy debt, it seems clear that the federal reserve is about to run this country's economy into the center of the sun.

Disclosure: I own SPY puts

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