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Foreword
"Last Week" is an examination of the week that was in the financial markets,
in an effort to help assess the prospects for the week(s) that will be.
Summary
The performance of the stock market last week conformed closely to some of
the key views expressed in last's weekend's edition. In a word and for the
overall period, the market was -- "lousy!"
The coming week contains a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee,
and it is no secret that micro manipulating the stock market is one of Alan
Greenspan's true passions. So there's a great chance the FOMC will try to throw
a flagging market a bone in the FOMC's post-meeting statement on Thursday.
I wonder, though, if the situation Greenspan and his Fed colleagues have created
couldn't become a Humpty Dumpty at some point? Where the cumulative effects
of all the machinations of the past finally come home to roost and actually
contribute to a blow-up in the stock market? In other words, an ironic display
of the law of unintended consequences at its best.
That's a story for another day. In the meantime, it looks to me like the
stock market has already rolled over or is in the immediate process of doing
so, and doing so in a serious way. Therefore, while it is unlikely to be a
straight-line move to the downside, particularly with a Fed meeting and quarter-end
at hand, I suspect the current decline is far from over. Continue to Gillespie
Research for the balance of the essay: http://www.gillespieresearch.com/cgi-bin/s/article/id=587
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