[Platinum Insights] (2.28.23) Macro Update and the 3 Indexes!

Good morning!  

Stock market futures are up slightly this morning on the final trading day of February. The markets jumped out of the gate in January but sputtered in February as the major indexes are on pace for their second negative month out of the last three. The Dow is down 3.5% for the month, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have lost 2.3% and 1% in February.  

February “will go down in history as the month where the market pulled back to digest a very strong rally you saw at the end of December into most of January,” said Adam Sarhan, CEO of 50 Park Investments. “This is a pullback month, it’s a rest month, and that’s good as long as support is defended and support holds, which is last week’s low.” 

In a speech to an economics class at Harvard University, Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson defended the central bank’s 2% inflation target, warning that changing it could destabilize inflation expectations.  

In economic news we are expecting advanced retail / wholesale inventories, the Chicago business barometer and consumer confidence data. The Chigago FED president will also be speaking this afternoon.  

Wholesale inventories fell by 0.4% from a month earlier to USD 929.7 billion in January 2023, following a 0.1% rise in the prior month, preliminary estimates showed.

It was the first decline in inventories since July 2020, as stocks fell for both durable (-0.1% vs 0.6% in December) and non-durable goods (-0.8%, the same as December). On an annual basis, wholesale inventories grew by 15.9% in January

Looking at the charts, we see the S&P closed up yesterday by .31% but under the resistance level of 4000. Support was found at the 50-day SMA. Price action trend is still moving downward since the beginning of the month.  

The DJIA closed up .22% wicking up to 33,189 before the bears pushed the price action back to 32,889. Price action trend is still falling since the months high in early February.  

The Nasdaq closed up .74% to remain in a range between the 20 and 200 period moving averages acting as resistance and support respectively.   

This information is for educational purposes and is not a recommendation to buy or sell a security.  Have a great day!

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