The Dow succumbed to selling pressure. Like This Stocks ended mixed after a half-hearted rally in the blue chips fizzled towards the end of the session. Heading into the May 15 FOMC meeting, the analyst expects investors to scrutinize economic data closely in hopes of finding insight into Fed policy.
Hogan expects the jobs numbers to provide some a direction as to where the market is going to go.
He believes that the market is at a juncture in time where good news about the economy is becoming bad news for Wall Street. We're in an easing mode when we get positive economic news, which we do need desperately, but sometimes the market sells off a bit in anticipation of that being the end of the Fed easing environment. Hogan expects the Fed to cut rates another 50 basis points, either at one meeting on May 15 or 25 basis points in each of the May and June meetings, regardless of how positive some of the economic data may be. However, he remains cautiously optimistic over the long run and sees some choppy trading ahead. I think that the trend though will be higher and we've worked our way out of a bottom, but I just don't think it's going to be a V-shape on the way back up.