Sustained upside behavior - is going to be unlikely after the holiday, while the overall skepticism continues so heavy, that fighting the Fed continues to be folly, at least in my view. At the same time small-cap wild speculation accelerates both in stocks with 'actual business' and growth expectations, plus some without. 

That doesn't mean we ignore prospects for S&P consolidation (as we expected today), or corrections, we actually expect that. But not catastrophe, even though some of the backdrop we discussed last night recognized risks, for the most part 'if' we fail to get medical progress and were to have 'COVID-19 slam all the way into the next seasonal flu season', without a way to address that.  

 As we remain optimistic about resolutions before then, we remain focused on the various risks (not all relate to the economy or COVID-19) that confront markets, most especially in the very expensive 'super-cap' stocks, as much of the market hasn't been in technically overbought territory, which we've often noted in past weeks.

 Executive summary:

• Stocks consolidated generally, which was the expectation for Wednesday, now they may well just swing in this high level range pre-long-weekend.

• News of better ADP jobs numbers buoyed markets early, however recall we warned last month that the overall numbers were skewed favorably primarily by factoring 'furloughed workers' as 'working', so that might be adjusted with the latest report coming-out early Thursday morning.

• Also you had Pfizer (PFE) speaking of 24 out of 24 early vaccine trial participants having favorable responses in terms of neutralizing antibodies (that's great of course), but it's a small trial.

• Nevertheless Pfizer is a conservative company not prone to hyperbole, so I am encouraged by what they're working on, so we need a much bigger trial.

• There are about 17 vaccine candidates in various states of trial currently, so we continue to expect multiple vaccines to emerge, more than one with real efficacy (including even the Chinese vaccine about to move into Phase 3 in tests that will be in the PLA military and also in Canada).

• Availability of these vaccines is unknown, but generally expect to initiate with first-responders and high-risk categories later this year and broadly in 2021.

• Again, a therapeutic drug or more is what is needed sooner than later, and there's an issue: COVID-19 is expanding so rapidly, that a number of trials have stopped recruiting volunteers, because hospitals are overwhelmed again, so cannot devote staff or facilities for testing protocols (a revolting situation if it is confirmed beyond a couple I've heard about in California particularly).

•  Inundation of hospitals by new -and sick- cases is a major concern as we approach mid-July, even as 'death rates' are not particularly proportionally high, but with such a volume, it's still a lot of mortality.

• Medicines used by Infectious Disease specialists to treat medicines used to treat Hepatitis B, HIV, and cytomegalovirus, are among candidates showing some potential as antiviral drugs combined to stop early COVID-19 infection.

• Merck (MRK), Bristol Myers (BMY), ViiV, Pinpoint (PPNT), Orpheris, and Gilead (GILD) ( are among the many getting close to a viable antiviral intervention 'pill' that is needed.

• Achievement of that (if efficacious) could change the dynamics facing the U.S. both economically, with respect to compelled disengagement socially, and of course keep a bullish alternative alive for the stocks market, which is the less important, but nevertheless area we focus on, aspect.

• For now there's no change in our view of this most recent pre-holiday bounce and then a bit of consolidation, and we'll see where things stand afterwards, with the prospect of news-sensitive responses out there, while correction risk is just off-stage if we don't get the kind of progress needed.