Image Source: Pixabay

Stocks finished the day higher, as rates rose modestly, and the dollar and the VIX fell. Overnight will be when the excitement starts, with the Bank of Japan policy decision, followed by a slew of economic data for the rest of the week and a Fed meeting and press conference on Wednesday.

It is tough to say what happens next for the broader stock indexes, but we will start to get clues tonight with the BOJ policy decision. The Nikkei leaked that the 10-year JGB would be allowed to float above 1%. How much it will be allowed to float and how much flexibility there will be is the big question, and that will be based on what they hope to accomplish. If it is just normalization of the yield curve, then allowing it to float to, say, 1.5% seems to stick with what happened in July. If they want the Yen to strengthen, they must remove yield curve control altogether or increase the range to 2%. We will find out more later.

In the meantime, stocks didn’t care today, with the index rallying as implied volatility fell. This seems to be a recurring theme, with Treasury rates moving lower and the VIX moving higher on Friday into the weekend, and that unwinding some on Monday. Given everything happening in the world, it certainly makes sense to see this, making it hard to assess what is happening in the market today.

VIX (VIX)

The VIX dropped from 21.3 to 19.7 today. It seems hard to imagine that, given everything going on this week in terms of news flow, implied volatility is going to stay down. The term structure of the S&P 500 shows implied volatility is elevated for the rest of this week, and I would say it probably goes higher as we move into Wednesday and then again on Friday.

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Bloomberg

S&P 500 (SPX)

Today’s rally in stocks did help to move the S&P 500 out of an oversold condition from the standpoint of the Bollinger band and the RSI. Meanwhile, 4,200 is now resistance, which may become challenging for the index to advance beyond. But that will largely be dictated by the data to come this week.

It is possible to count today’s rally as a retracement and a completed retracement, as it would mark a 50% retracement of the decline from October 24 through October 27; wave C equals 78.6% of wave A. If this is right, then tomorrow, the index should drop right from the opening and undercut Friday’s low at some point during the next few days.

If that is the wrong count, the next spot to look for would be 4,200, the 61.8% retracement of the 5-wave impulse down.

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Tesla (TSLA)

Tesla fell almost 5% today and moved below $200. If the topping pattern was a diamond, then we should return to the pattern’s origin, which is at $165. So, the pain may not be over just yet. The move from the October 2022 lows appears to be a 3-wave retracement pattern—the move down since the July peak appears to be a 5-wave impulse. So, a drop to $165 seems possible in my view.

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