AM Brew, Jun 15th 2022

Futures are up across the board on risk assets except of course crypto. Equities, precious metals and the British pound are rallying in advance of today's Fed announcement. Stoxx Europe 600 is up 1% this morning. This feels like sell on the rumor & buy on the news - the authors of this publication just got long an S&P500 futures contract for a very short term trade on the thesis that almost anything the Fed says today will be construed as bullish. Why bullish for a short-term trade?

1. Market Interest Rates just rocketed up in advance of the Fed meeting

2. Oil Prices have eased a tad, the first easing in a long time

3. Valuations are much more reasonable across the board

4. Some buying yesterday below 3750 on the S&P

5. Yesterday's positive news from ORCL & FDX shows that not all is bad

Recently, most Fed meetings have predicted short-term rallies:

Last night, the British Pound breached the critical 1.20 level but it has held up nicely as a support level. As you know, Crypto has not found support yet but Bitcoin at $21k is quickly approaching the psychological $20,000 level and Etherium at $1100 is also approaching the thousand level. If crypto were to meaningfully breach these levels, that would be scary for what we would call 'San Francisco related assets'.

This week, there is quite a bit of economic information hitting the market: Powell and LaGarde speak today, in addition to inventory, manufacturing and retail sales data. If you ask me, nobody is going to remember any of this in a month - there should be no new information presented. Its doubtful that Powell will change his tune and get more hawkish. He can see the slowdown data already and is likely to "surprise" people by stating the obvious. Seems bullish.

Our guess is that Powell is unlikely to change course and raise rates 75 bps - we think the raise will be the original 50 bps. Powell usually sticks to his course, and his course was measured. There is nothing in the economy that requires a shock-type response. We also think that whatever Powell says will be construed as bullish.

Oil is weak this morning in anticipation of the Fed announcement DESPITE the International Energy Agency's statement that supply is unlikely to meet upcoming demand. Ignore the oil fundamentals at your peril - everyone we know in London is guzzling gas at $8.50 a gallon - Americans will too - there is not a thing Powell can do about it.

Everyone knows about the Fed meeting, so there is not much to write about today. We are short-term bullish & looking for a small bear-market rally.