If investors are in any rush to push the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) above the record high closing value of 2,930.75 it set back on 20 Setpember 2019, they didn't betray any sign of it during the Good Friday holiday-shortened third week of April 2019, as the index mainly drifted sideways during the week.
On the plus side, we've finally reached the end of our redzone forecast period, which we developed over 14 weeks ago. The following chart shows the seemingly remarkable result, where every daily closing value for the S&P 500 falls within the forecasted range.
We say "seemingly remarkable" because we broke with our previous practice of simply drawing a red-shaded box indicating the forecast on the spaghetti forecast chart generated from our dividend futures-based model of how stock prices work that never changes over time, regardless of changes in future expectations. Here, because of the sheer amount of time we were seeking to bridge in compensating for the "echo" of past volatility that arises from our model's use of historic stock prices as the base reference points from which it projects into the future, we set our redzone forecast up this time to automatically update as future expectations changed.
Starting with the assumption that investors would largely be focused on 2019-Q1 over much of this period, and later on 2020-Q1 after 2019-Q1 came to an end, we anchored one end of our experimental redzone forecast range to the level of the S&P 500 at the close of trading on Friday, 11 January 2019. We then fixed the other end of the range to what our dividend futures-based model forecast projected the level of the S&P 500 would be on 22 April 2019, provided that investors would be setting stock prices in accordance with the future expectations associated with the distant future quarter of 2020-Q1.
As those future expectations have changed over the last 14 weeks, so has the trajectory of our redzone forecast range, which has continually fluctated from week to week. Fourteen weeks later, every single point of the actual trajectory of the S&P 500 falls within the range defined by how we introduced our assumptions back on 14 January 2019.
Fortunately, since we're now out of the period where the past volatility of stock prices affects the accuracy of our model, we can finally stop, where the model will better communicate how far forward in time investors are focusing as they set current day stock prices.
Meanwhile, for a week where the market didn't move very much, there was still quite a lot of noise for investors to absorb, as evidenced by the major market-moving headlines of the week.
- Monday, 15 April 2019
- Oil rally stalls on talk of OPEC+ boosting output
- Bigger stimulus developing in China:
- China central bank calls for more policy coordination to support growth
- Getting traction? China first quarter GDP growth seen cooling to 6.3 percent, but March may suggest rebound: Reuters poll
- Worried a recession is coming, U.S. online lenders reduce risk
- Wall Street slips as bank earnings disappoint
- Tuesday, 16 April 2019
- Oil up 1 percent as market focuses on supply risks
- Global steel demand slows as China economy falters and trade war hits
- All of Fed's 12 regional banks backed steady discount rate: minutes
- Fed's Rosengren says central bank should target an inflation range
- No need to adjust policy to prevent financial instability: Fed's Rosengren
- Stocks approach new highs but healthcare stymies Wall Street
- Wednesday, 17 April 2019
- Oil settles lower as U.S. inventories disappoint market
- Bigger trouble developing in Eurozone: 'Best times over' for Germany, government slashes growth forecast
- Bigger stimulus developing in China:
- China first quarter GDP growth set to slow to 6.3 percent, more policy support needed
- Getting traction: China's first-quarter growth unexpectedly steadies, but too early to call clear recovery
- Fed's Harker sees 'sound' economy, forecasts future rate hike
- Fed's Bullard says economic data should improve, yield curve steepen in coming months
- Interesting perspective: How China Is Driving US Interest Rates
- Trade surprise? U.S. trade deficit hits eight-month low on weak Chinese imports
- Stocks skid as healthcare plunge obscures China rebound
- Thursday, 18 April 2019