This Market Looks Like a ‘Best-Case Scenario’

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The Trump administration went from bombing threats last week to, for lack of a better term, hope: “We are about to sign the truce papers this weekend.”If the truce holds, the market decline we experienced in the last two weeks qualifies as a correction.If the fighting is truly over, it would be the best-case scenario, as a drop of 2,500+ points (June 3-11) on the NASDAQ 100 is close enough to a correction, given no further spikes in oil or Treasury yields.The two main threats in the U.S. power structure – those capable of disproportionately pushing the market around – are the Federal Reserve and the President, the leaders of monetary and fiscal policy. Their actions can cause huge swings, both up and down, even in a good economy. The Trump administration did that with raised tariffs last year, and to a lesser degree with the Iran war this year. The Federal Reserve can also impact markets, as in late 2018, by over-tightening, and in 2022 with belated tightening.It looks like the next big swing in the stock market will come from the Federal Reserve and its new Fed Chairman, who has very different ideas (than exiting Fed Chair Jerome Powell) about how to manage the Fed’s balance sheet and monetary policy.In the meantime, my guess is this market rally continues, and we will probably make fresh all-time highs in the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 this summer, although if there is no active war in Iran hanging over the market, the indexes should broaden out, which means the vertical move in the tech sector will be less vertical and trend toward the normal as money keeps flowing to other sectors of the market.The S&P 500’s first-quarter earnings per share (1Q EPS) growth was almost 29%. Q2 estimates call for growth of over 21%. Since estimates typically are understated in a good economy, they could rise by 25% or more. With that type of earnings growth, it is hard to keep the stock market down, although EPS gains are lopsided towards the technology sector, as that is where the heavy spending on AI data centers is going.The Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX) launch was a success, rising 19% on its first day of trading (from the IPO price). I will track it to see if it breaks the IPO price of $135, which is impossible to predict ahead of time, as I expect Elon Musk will have plenty of tricks up his sleeve as Starship launches and a lot of satellites are thrown into space, which may well be greeted with appreciation in the share price.I do not expect SPCX to make any sense for years, at least when measured by revenue and earnings multiples, as it will trade on hopes and dreams of cities on the Moon and Mars. This means shares could experience huge swings when lockups expire. The odds it breaks the $135 IPO price are not insignificant, even though they are impossible to quantify, despite an “Elon Musk halo effect” we are seeing these days.My guess is SPCX has a good chance of breaking the IPO price of $135 the next time we hit turbulence in the stock market in the next few months, similar to what we just experienced, as more lockups expire. We simply need more stock to be available for trading for that to happen, which is not the case right now.