Hang on for the ranting stream of unconsciousness…

• This market is way too dependent upon economic releases and the daily fascination with their effects on FOMC rate decisions.
• The bulls who called for an end to rate hikes prior to last year were wrong for a long time.
• The bulls who have been forecasting a Fed rate cut have been wrong since last August.
• The odds on rate cuts as expressed by watching the Fed futures trading have been wrong about as many times as they have been right…before they became wrong again.
• The economic data released by the government is all over the map.
• Investors react to high inflation one week and react to low inflation data the next…meanwhile prices themselves have neither gone up or down measurably over the few days between each market reaction.
• The variability from month-to-month in government economic data is only topped by the revisions that follow.
• The formulas used by the government rely upon variables and weightings that are highly fungible at best and wrong at the worst.
• The weaknesses in all this data allow economists and investors to parse or spin or discredit at their whim.

Despite all these absurdities, the market continues its fascination with forecasts that are wrong and data that is wrong.  However, this behavior is largely irrelevant for now.  The market is higher and that is all that seems to matter.  Many days, this data and the reactions to it are given as reasons for the move despite the fact that most intelligent investors have to know that the data they are relying on today, will likely be wrong tomorrow.  In an investing world that preaches its reliance on fundamentals and long term decisionmaking, this is a big farce.  I am not saying we should ignore the data that comes out every day, but it would be better for the long term if we didn’t overreact today and overreact tomorrow.