Will Markets Remain at All-Time Highs Until the Presidential Election?

Historically, markets tend to be volatile leading up to elections.

One factor that plays in to market sentiment and direction is Macroeconomic Conditions: concerns like inflation, interest rates, and employment data significantly affect market sentiment.

The Fed has pegged their Fed Funds Rate at5.25% to 5%. Today, the federal fund rate is 5.00%. On September 18, 2024, the Fed executed the first rate cut in nearly four years. The intent of the Fed was to lower interest rates and slow down the economy.

The markets were encouraged by this cut it seems and there is now ongoing discussion/debate as to how much more they will cut by years end.

The S&P 500 hit a record high pretty much right after the announcement. The Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial Average also gained nearly 0.9% and 0.6%, respectively.

Bonds – and I use the TLT as my benchmark for assessing how bonds are doing, haven’t acted in as bullish a fashion as one might think with the rate cut. I will discuss this on the next page.

Today, the markets, the Dow and the S&P 500 started out at new all-time highs and at the time of this write up are trading off those highs and it seems as if they are both going to close lower on the day.

As for will they stay here or go higher until the election? I believe they can, but just like the ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ situation I see in bonds right now I have to be wary if that doesn’t happen in equities once the new President is elected.

Market in Focus – iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT)

Typically, bonds are pushed higher when interest rates drop. But there’s been a pullback since the Fed’s decision instead.

I deem this a ‘Buy the rumor and Sell the news event.’

Bonds, the TLT, has been on such a bullish run in what I see was done in anticipation of the Fed cutting rates that once they actually DID cut rates, profit taking came in.

Will profit taking continue and if it is to pull back how much further can it drop?

I have the Fibonacci retracement tool placed on the chart image above and the 38.2% Fib retracement level shows a possible support could happen at around $96.25. As bonds drop, equities tend to rise so this may help push stocks higher a bit more.

Tools and Observations

Pulling in a list from outside of Toms Option Tools software IN to Toms Option Tools is what I will have my Seasonal Options Strategist Jay Harris teach today.

Earlier in the week my lead support guy and Seasonal Option Strategist Jay Harris and I did a Live Trade sessions for my annual subscribers.

In his part he showed subscribers how they can bring in a list of stocks from outside of the tools, (from a different website) and bring them in to our tools so we can then run any of our variety of scans on those specific lists. Not everyone was able to make it nor watch the recording, so I asked him to give the rundown on how to do that here as well.  This way we can try and get this education to as many of you as possible.

Jay? Take it away.

Thanks, Tom – will do.

Hi everyone. The first thing you want to do is familiarize yourself with the Lists part of Toms Tools.

Once you log in do the following steps Website > Lists > Edit list and you get to this page:

It is here you will be able to click on a dropdown window that brings up a list of 20-line items all labeled List 1, List 2, List 3 etc. down to list #19.

List #20 is titled My Stock List and is the only list that cannot be renamed.

You can replace a list of stock symbols in My Stock List as often as you wish you just can’t change the name of that list as this is what we use to basically, test our ideas and various stock lists to see if our ideas are worthy of THEN saving to its own list (of the 1-19).

You can click on the Help?? button and a separate tab or window will open up and you can read the education provide in it.

To start out click on the dropdown window for ‘Selected Stock List.’

Left click List 1 and the page will refresh.

My image shows List 12, but that is because I already have a bunch of lists that I have created and am using in my research.

Note the other buttons in the Controls Box to the right.

Also note there are some Precomputed Symbols (lists) in the tools already if you want to click on those and see what is there please do.

You can now click in the Edit Symbols box and start typing in your list by hand.

Another thing you can so is what I am going to show you and that is cut and paste a list of symbols in there to make things go much faster.

Open up another internet window or tab and go to the website www.setorspdrs.com. You can use any website you wish. This one just happens to be one I/we use a lot.

This is a website I/we use to track different sectors of the market. It divides the S&P 500 into eleven sector index funds.

It provides you the name and symbol of each, it has the capability for one to go look up all the holdings of each sector ETF and it tracks their performance for the day, number of days, weeks, or months.

When you open the site scroll down to the Sector Tracker. You can see the performance on the day, but what I want you to do is click on any one of the sector ETF symbols to open up the info on that specific sector.

I am highlighting the XLK to stay consistent with what /how I taught it earlier in the week.

When you click on that symbol the page refreshes to where you can find this part of it and click on the ‘Holdings’ tab.

When the page refreshes find the two tabs for either CSV or XLS file…

OR you can just forgo clicking the Holdings tab and scroll down the page a bit to find the two tabs CVS or XLS file.

It doesn’t matter which one you click on because a spreadsheet should become available to you once you click on either one.

Open up that spreadsheet and then what I do is left click and hold that left click down on the last ticker in the list and scroll up to copy all the symbols.

I then hit my right click button and then from the dropdown list that appears click Copy.

I then go back to the tools and find that open Edit List Name page.

I right click in the empty Edit Symbols box and then left click Paste.

Once the symbols are in the box I then click on the Edit List Name rectangle and type in the name of the sector SPDR ETF… in this case, XLK.

I then click Save and it reformats all the symbols in the box to how the software is programmed to and voila! List created.

You have 19 lists you can create so maybe you don’t want to create all 11 Sector SPDR lists at once. If you do that’s’ fine and it’s up to you.

The key thing is you now know how to create a list this way and you can do as many as you want, when you want.

Now its time to scan away on this list and find your opportunities.

Special Offer

Join Mastery On-Demand!

Have you ever wanted to join the Mastery Program but couldn’t make the live events? Well this year I wanted to change it up and offer you the ability to learn on your time with our brand new Mastery On-Demand offering.

Choose from a wealth of Mastery Programs including our System Mastery, Hedge Fund Mastery, and Trend Mastery — or choose to get access to all of them with the All Access pass.

Join Today!

App: Toms Option Tools

Toms Option Tools scan the markets for bullish and bearish trade opportunities using our proprietary scans and strategy algorithms. TTR Darknet finds bullish entries based on triple stack channel collisions. Money Calendar identifies seasonal patterns with at least 90% accuracy looking back 10 years. Weekly Cash Clock finds short term opportunities that last a week on average. Microcurrency Trader applies Darknet technology and moving averages to cryptocurrencies. Velocity Trader utilizes volume spike and Velocity indicators on custom stock lists. Quantum Scripts scans the markets for momentum acceleration signals and employs Quantum noise filters. Optimal Trader finds directional pre-earnings opportunities that are optimized for entry date, stock movement, and volatility surge. My Trades tracks the profit/loss of your trades, displays stock charts and risk graphs, creates new trades, and edits existing trades. Morning Report provides top 10 option rankings in 6 categories each day.

Disclaimers

Stock and options trading has large potential rewards, but also large potential risk.

You must be aware of the risks and be willing to accept them in order to invest in the stock and options market. Do not trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

This is neither an offer to buy/sell/ or recommend a particular stock or option.

Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain inherent limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not represent actual trading. Also, since the trades have not been actually executed, the results may have under or overcompensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with hindsight.

No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown.

Disclaimer of Warranties and Liabilities Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC including employees, consultants, and editors (“Publisher”) cannot and do not warrant the completeness or accuracy of the content found in our areas, or its usefulness for any particular purpose.

Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC also make no promises that our content or the service itself will be delivered to you uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free. Under no circumstances will Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, or any other type of damages resulting from your use or downloading of any content on our site.

This includes, but is in no way limited to, loss or injury caused in whole or in part by our negligence or by anything beyond our control in creating or delivering any portion of Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC.

You are agreeing that you bear responsibility for your own investment research and investment decisions. You also agree that Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC will not be liable for any I, investment decision made, or action taken by you, or others based upon reliance on news, information, or any other material published by Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC.

Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC relies on various sources of information that we believe to be accurate and reliable. However, we make no claims or representations as to the accuracy, completeness, or truth of any material contained on our site.

Tom Gentile and TomsTradingRoom, LLC are educational portals, providing content for educational and informational purposes only. Neither Tom Gentile nor TomsTradingRoom, LLC are a broker/dealer. Investors need a broker to trade stocks and options and must meet certain requirements. All securities, futures, and investments data and ideas are offered to self-directed investors. All prices in USD unless noted otherwise.

A full disclaimer can be found here:  http://www.tomgentile.com/legal_disclaimers.html.