Those who have been dying of boredom during August -- the lowest volume, tightest ranging month in many years -- may be about to get their respite. September 12 (or Wednesday next week) offers a potential cornucopia of either fantastically good or terribly bad news, and maybe both.
Let me give you a program of the upcoming events on this momentous day:
*The German Supreme Court renders its decision on the legality of the country?s bailout of troubled southern Europe. If they approve, as expected, the Euro should rally to a new multi-month high, possibly as high as $1.29, triggering a global ?RISK ON? move. If they don?t, then the beleaguered continental currency craters very quickly back to $1.20, from whence it came.
*The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets, which may finally give us the good news on QE3. If they deliver, markets will gap up. If they don?t, then everyone will assume that quantitative easing at the next meeting is a sure thing and the markets will go to sleep until then. Personally, I don?t think the Fed will act until the Dow drops below 10,000 and puts the fear of God into everyone. This is the day when we find out how real the ?Bernanke/Draghi Put? is.
*Apple releases the iPhone 5, which will become the greatest consumer electronics release in history, and possibly the most expensive. It turns that that all those leaks I was receiving about timing, price, and performance were correct. This should cause the stock to blast through $700, which is why it is my largest position, with a 35% weighting in my model portfolio. But we may not get much more action than that for the short term. The iPhone 5 launch is what the last $160 point move up since the end of May has been all about.
*The next biweekly Mad Hedge Fund Trader global strategy webinar takes place. Yikes! Whose idea was this? This timing is as bad as scheduling the Republican National Convention in Florida in the middle of the hurricane season. I may have to ask listeners to update me on prices while my broadcast is in progress, as I can?t tie up too much bandwidth with price feeds without crashing the program.
If you net out all the likely outcomes of the above, it is market positive. But surprises will have an outsized downside market impact. Whatever the case, life is about to become much more interesting.
How Real is the ?Bernanke/Draghi Put??
