Yep. Investor sentiment remains "buy the dip" and the Fed supports it. This has nothing to do with economic data. Even bad economic data means the Fed will print more money which flows right into financial assets. Fed Balance sheet is over $7 Trillion. It is buying investment grade bonds, high yield bonds that used to be investment grade, municipal bonds, Mortgage backed securities, treasuries. Only thing not on the list is stocks...should I add 'yet'?
The articles that say the market is looking to the Fed for "clues" today have been numerous (3855Win posted one from CNBC, but Bloomberg had one too), but I just assume they were written by the new summer interns. The Fed isn't going to give any guidance on rates or purchases today. It's only going to say "do whatever is necessary" or "plenty of tools left in the toolbox". Any clarity on the future today from Powell would be an absolute failure. You might get a "sell the news" event over the next few days as the market has come very far very fast, and I'm sure the every media outlet's summer intern will parse the words to make up a reason for it, but there isn't any particular reason. This has been going on for the last 10yrs. We typically rally before the meeting and sell off a little after,. We will see what happens this time.
With the Fed purchasing everything, it destroys the risk/return curve. A corporate bond's interest rate spread to treasuries isn't about the risk of default anymore. It is an assessment of the chance of getting bailed out. High risk stocks aren't that risky if money is going to flood into the market and the Fed is a backstop. Active managers ("stock-pickers") have historically done well in these types of selloffs, but I suspect they are going to continue to get trounced by the index. There is no difference to the market between high quality and risky companies. No mutual fund manager is going to say "we buy highly levered companies with the worst business models", but those tend to do the best in this craziness.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant. It really isn't other than everything that is taught in economics and finance in every college across the world is basically irrelevant. In full disclosure, my portfolio is 70% stocks, so i ride the wave as long as I can, even if I think it is doesn't make any sense.