Ignore the noise and focus on the main event

Mid-week market update: Have you ever seen any technician publish the short-term analysis of the stock market just before a key event with a binary outcome, such as an FOMC decision, NFP report, or CPI report? How much confidence would you place in such a forecast?

As we await the outcome of the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington, the market is left to guessing the direction of stock prices. Analysts wind up focusing on indicators that have little or no value, such as the size of (former) Fed Chair Alan Greenspan's briefcase. While negotiations are at an apparent impasse, we are left to guessing how much of the statements from each side is real and how much is bluff., or even the exact timing of X-date, or the day the U.S. Treasury runs out of money It's highly likely a deal will be reached and the U.S. will not default on its debts, at this point it's all noise as the S&P 500 remains in a trading band.

While we don't know whether there will be a deal, some analysis of sentiment can yield some clues as to the degree of market reaction once the results of the binary event is known.

The full post can be found here.