Transcript:
Tom Vaughan:
Hello, everybody, welcome to Thursday. Unfortunately, red shirt day today, S&P 500 is down 3.6%. We’ve basically retraced all the gains that we made this week. And on Monday we opened up and we actually hit the lowest point for the year rallied up ended up with an update Tuesday was an update Wednesday, S&P 500 is up 3%. We gave most of that back this today. And so really, you know, we’re hitting support levels right where we are right now. That’s why it bounced on Monday. But when you keep hitting support levels, you can eventually dry it up. So we’ll see how that plays out. The next support level that I see is about 5% below where we are now wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen, you kind of need this final capitulation to hit some low point where the only people left are really the buyers that want to come in and move that market and get it going the right direction. So we’ll see how that plays out. Essentially, what’s happening here is that the Federal Reserve sees an economy that has very strong household finances, very good business, finances, very good spending on both sides of those is great job openings are unbelievable. And those types of things. They think they have some room to be able to push down, you know, on the economy and slow it down some to kind of inflate and control inflation.
And the market looks at that and says, you know, at least if you look at the price action today, they’re not so sure that the Federal Reserve can do what’s needed to be done. Maybe they’re behind, or what have you. But more importantly, obviously, the Federal Reserve can’t really controls some of the supply side issues. And so that’s where it becomes difficult to bring inflation down. So for example, if we look forward, you know, for the next six months, at the things that are causing higher inflation on the supply side, right now, you look at the China COVID. Lockdown, could that get better in six months? Yes, they could give up on the syrup policy or what have you. I mean, one of the things they’re doing right now there’s a Foxconn plant that makes Apple products that’s still going and still producing, and everybody’s just living in the plant actually to make that happen. So they’ve got some workarounds that are doing which seem a little crazy. But nonetheless, you look at the Ukraine in Russia situation, could that get better in six months, because that’s creating some supply disruptions to between wheat and different materials and things that we get out of Russia and Ukraine. Yes, that could get better. You know, in that six month period, one of the things that strikes me that’s not going to get better.
And I think this might be a concern for the market is just the fact that the the EU yesterday announced that they’re going to be removing themselves from Russian oil over a six month period. And so even if Ukraine was to resolve itself tomorrow, we still have probably the EU moving themselves off of Russian gas and oil. And that obviously creates some restriction of pricing that’s happening there. That could create a higher oil price, which is hard for the Federal Reserve to control. The other one is wheat, a lot of wheat comes out of Ukraine, maybe we get around the oil thing, by having some of these other oil producing compact countries produce more, that would be fine. But it’s very difficult to kind of make up that wheats which would be an inflationary aspect for food. And so you know, there’s pieces there that are still playing out that we’re kind of have to see on that supply side. And those aren’t something that the Federal Reserve can deal with as far as that goes. So really interesting set of problems that are happening right now all together. But if you look at it from a kind of a longer term perspective, a lot of these problems could resolve themselves here over the next few years. And again, if you’re investing for trying to make money for next month, or something like that, that’s a different scenario.
If you’re looking for investments for the rest of your retirement, you know, there’s some opportunities here, we’re using this rebalancing to kind of buy those things that we believe in, at these lower prices. And I think, you know, once things do finally resolve and, you know, these downturns happen, it’s part of the process. And it really, it’s the opportunity that I look at in this particular scenario, up to a point, you know, we’ll see what happens. I don’t have any my indicators showing recession at this point, either does the Federal Reserve by the way that was very clear yesterday, talked about quite a bit at this point in time that can change so and if it if it does become a recessionary environment, or looks like it’s going to be one, at least a bit more certain than now, then probably start to get more defensive for what we’re dealing with.
But right now, don’t worry about things too much. You know, we are where we were a year ago, which so basically, the market has returned, essentially, you know, zero, that last year period, which isn’t spectacular, but that’s not unusual. That happens quite often. And if you look at the years prior to that, which were so spectacular 2019 and 20 and 21 line, we’re all pretty big years for the S&P 500, for example, so, you know, having a slow down year here would not be surprising at all, or even something that we should be too overly concerned with. So we got to be careful in these environments that focusing on just the short term, markets go down faster than they go up. And so that’s why it can be kind of scary for people to and I understand that, but hang in there. I think you know, things are gonna work out here may fall a little bit further before they do but let’s see how this plays out. But I’ll keep talking to you. We’ll keep looking at it. We’ll keep talking about what I see. And what you know what’s, what’s going on out there. So I look forward to talking to you tomorrow. Thank you very much.