Mark Twain said that “history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.”
This market is about to make a liar out of him because the price action following the FOMC so far is identical to last month.
Following the May 4 FOMC meeting, the S&P 500 jumped to 4244 from 4153, a 2.1% climb. It was a curious move given the 50 bps hike and middling performance from the Fed chair.
In a similarly-hawkish FOMC decision yesterday, the index rallied to 3837 from 3722, or 3.1%.
After the May meeting, all the gains were wiped out the next day and the index continued to decline. Today, S&P 500 futures are down 77 points, putting futures below where they were pre-FOMC.
The similarities between the decisions and the market reactions is uncanny. I flagged a similar playbook yesterday but what made me so uncomfortable was just how similar it was. Markets almost never repeat.
At some point, this trend will disconnect — the S&P 500 went on to fall 13% after the last FOMC –but right now it’s tough to bet on any kind of market bottom after a 75 bps Fed hike.