🌪️Is The Bottom In For Natural Gas Prices?: “The last few weeks have not been good for the buyers. The bears showed their claws, and deprived the bulls of valuable allies and questioned the signals coming from the indicators.” (Investing.com)

🏛️FOMC Minutes: “Federal Reserve officials indicated at their last meeting that they were in no hurry to cut interest rates and expressed both optimism and caution on inflation, according to minutes from the session released Wednesday.” (CNBC)

🤖Nvidia Earnings & The Futures Of AI: “The AI chipmaker had better-than-expected revenues of $22.1 billion in the fourth quarter, a 265% year-on-year increase. The company's stock surged almost 15% in premarket trading after posting the blockbuster quarterly sales." (Business Insider)

🏧Consumer Spending: "After several Fed officials last week said they wanted to see more evidence that inflation was on a downward path, Thursday's release of the PCE Price Index will provide a key update. Deutsche Bank economists project that core PCE inflation will rise 0.36% in January, accelerating from its December reading." (Investopedia)

💻More Earnings To Keep The AI Buzz Buzzing: "How high will the market go? After Thursday’s stunning rally, thanks to Nvidia (NVDA), investors are suddenly debating whether the Fed’s policy decisions still matter as long as Nvidia keeps demolishing its quarterly earnings and guidance. This is precisely what happened on Wednesday after the chip giant delivered yet another blockbuster that crushed even the loftiest of Wall Street expectations." (Nasdaq)

🔊The Eco Calendar & A Long List of Talking Feds: We expect traders to be paying attention to housing numbers, consumer reports, housing data, and 12 scheduled fed governor speaking engagements this week. (Econoday)

STOCK INDEX FUTURES

The S&P 500 closed at a new record high on Thursday, then was relatively flat on Friday. The S&P 500 was higher for the week by +1.67%, and the NASDAQ-100 was up +1.44%.

After a stellar 2023 for stocks, traders are getting more of the same in 2024. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both up roughly 7% YTD.

Some traders are optimistic because the current rally appears to be driven by strong earnings reports rather than expectations for interest-rate cuts.

AI stocks were the story of the week. Nvidia’s market cap increased a record $277 billion in one trading day.

INTEREST RATE FUTURES

How does the Fed interest rate forecast compare to Wall Street economists?

The Fed expects to make three rate cuts in 2024, and the major sell-side banks expectations are expecting more than three cuts (listed below).

Interestingly, the markets forecast the highest probability of the first-rate cut at the June FOMC meeting.

But there’s a wide dispersion of views about when the cuts begin (some in March, some in the summer) and how many cuts the central bank will deliver in 2024.

This informal running tally of sell-side banks and other Fed forecasters now sees June as more likely than May for the first cut.

Every Friday afternoon, Topstep Performance Coach John Hoagland fires up his charts and identifies the trends and “areas of importance” futures traders should look out for in the coming week. Read on to see what John’s keeping his eye on this week!

Coach Robert~

As a purely technical trader, I really don't set any market expectations or have high-level overviews of the big picture. Nor do I trade with long/short bias.

Eddie~

Traders are here to trade. They are not here to battle the markets. If you find yourself fighting a market, the odds are you have already put your day in a negative position.

Hoag~

Volatility has never been my thing. Holding positions into economic releases has created big wins and big losses. At this point, adding up all the wins and losses, I’m about even, so now I don’t bother!

Mick~

Don’t let your desire for profits influence your trading. Stick to your Personal Loss Limit. Don’t make exceptions in the heat of the moment.