The 10 Deadly Stock Market Sins

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Our View

I’m not falling for the idea of no year-end rally; it's just a question of when it will start.

Will it start in October, the month considered the bear killer? I’m not, only because of what I call the 10 Deadly Stock Market Sins:

1. Inflation (food prices)

2. Historically high yields and interest rates

3. Crude Oil / High Gas Prices

4. The US Dollar

5. Russian / Ukraine War

6. Recession

7. Government Expenditures and Deficits

8. Geopolitical Tensions

9. Technology Wars

10. The US Budget (although the can has been kicked down the road)

I am sure there are more sins out there, but these are the first 10 I could think of. It's an unprecedented situation for the US and how we come out of it is unknown. Fed Chairman Powell has time and time again talked about a soft landing, but when he was asked recently during a press conference if he would now call the soft landing a baseline expectation, Powell demurred.

“No, I would not do that,” he said. "I've always thought that the soft landing was a plausible outcome...ultimately, this may be decided by factors that are outside our control at the end of the day, but I do think it's possible.”

As I have said many times, I’m not a Wall Street economist, I'm just an old floor guy who has seen a lot over my 45 years of following and trading the markets and it seems like the United States is in for the long hull. I'm always a bull market guy, but I am also very pessimistic at the moment.