Will we look back on the month of July as a critical turning point for the stock market?  During the first half of 2019, stock prices soared to record high after record high even though we just kept getting one number after another that indicated that a new economic slowdown was starting.

Because of the disappointing performance of the U.S. economy, it was believed that we would see a rate cut from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, and that is precisely what happened.  But instead of rejoicing, investors started to panic a bit, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 333 points.  We will get into why that happened in just a little bit.

But without a doubt it seems quite odd that the Fed’s very first rate cut since December 2008 actually caused stocks to go down.  On a historical basis, interest rates are already very low right now, and so this greatly limits what the Fed will be able to do once the next recession officially begins.  Of course most investors are not concerned with such considerations.

What they really want is for interest rates to be pushed all the way to the floor as quickly as possible, and so they were quite disappointed with what they heard from Fed Chairman Jay Powell on Wednesday. (Read More…)