Market On Open - Tuesday 13 February

CPI day. Never a dull moment.

DISCLAIMER: This note is intended for US recipients only and, in particular, is not directed at, nor intended to be relied upon by any UK recipients. Any information or analysis in this note is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Nothing in this note is intended to be investment advice and nor should it be relied upon to make investment decisions. Cestrian Capital Research, Inc., its employees, agents or affiliates, including the author of this note, or related persons, may have a position in any stocks, security, or financial instrument referenced in this note. Any opinions, analyses, or probabilities expressed in this note are those of the author as of the note's date of publication and are subject to change without notice. Companies referenced in this note or their employees or affiliates may be customers of Cestrian Capital Research, Inc. Cestrian Capital Research, Inc. values both its independence and transparency and does not believe that this presents a material potential conflict of interest or impacts the content of its research or publications.

Lead Helmet Day

0830 Eastern today sees the CPI print for January. There seems to be an acceptance that inflation is likely to tick up a notch; it is possible that the Fed then raises rates, whereupon you can expect some monkey business of the highest order from market bigs. More likely in my view that the Fed decides to not cut rates at present, which alone may cause disappointment amongst late money.

CPI day itself is usually a festival of free money for bigs. It is common to see indices in particular swing up, down, down, up, all over the shop like a crazed shopping cart until finally settling to head off in the direction bigs had planned anyway.

Protection against this kind of thing comes in a number of forms, including but not limited to:

• A focus on the longer timeframe
• A dead-inside approach to investing where you will be surprised by nothing, shocked by nothing, and will have the confidence to sit back, work out what is actually happening and then act accordingly
• A lead helmet. Which is available for surprisingly little. No finer defense against the money-stealing brain-ionizing radiation sent to you via your broker screen from Mission Control.

And with that, let’s check in on our usual charts.

Paying members of Inner Circle, scroll down for our long- and short-term take on the S&P500, the Nasdaq-100, the Dow Jones 30 and the Russell 2000 - including the regular ETFs, the futures, the 3x leveraged ETFs and then finishing with a take on sector ETFs in semiconductor, tech, and the Fangs.

(Not a paying member? Sign up right here. If you’re not sure about committing, just take the monthly. If you like it and want to take an annual, we’ll deduct that first month’s fee so you’re not out of pocket. If you hate it, you’re down only $299).

Note - to open full-page versions of these charts, just click on the chart headings, which are hyperlinks.