Don’t look now but the S&P 500 is currently on pace for its third straight day of gains, and with the MTD decline now at just over 1%, there’s actually a possibility of a green November! Before getting too far ahead of ourselves, however, Fed Chair Powell is set to speak right at noon today, and the tone of his speech could play a big role in how the afternoon goes.

There doesn’t seem to be a more consensus trade these days than that interest rates are going to rise. A prime example is yesterday’s Consumer Confidence report for the month of November. In reference to a question regarding the direction of interest rates, 74.4% of those surveyed expect interest rates to rise (highest since July 2006), while just 5.5% expect rates to decline. At a spread of 68.9 percentage points, you don’t often see sentiment skewed so far to one side. While it’s not always the case, often when you see such lopsided levels of sentiment, things have a way of going the other direction.