The S&P 500 Is Set Up To Crash

Let me preface this commentary with the proviso that none of us has any idea the extent to which the Fed and the Working Group On Financial Markets, which has its offices in the same building as the NY Fed, has the ability to prevent a stock market accident.
Having said that, a large portion of the stock market has been in a tail-spin. The Dow Jones Transports Index is down over 18% from its peak last November; the SPDR retail ETF, XRT, is down 15% from mid-July this year; the iShares Biotech ETF, IBB, is down 18% since its high close in mid-July – perhaps ironically one day after XRT closed at its high; AAPL is down 20.3% from its February 23, 2015 all-time high – technically AAPL is now in a bear market; Dow Jones homebuilder/construction index, DJUSHB, is down over 10% from its high close (not even close to all-time high) in August – notwithstanding all the other fundamental headwinds starting blow at housing with full force, hiking interest rates will act like a roadside bomb on the housing market.

This post was published at Investment Research Dynamics on December 19, 2015.