A Key Bank-Lending Metric Just Made History: Here's What It Likely Means for Stocks
Nasdaq One of the few constants Wall Street offers investors is short-term unpredictability. Since this decade began, the iconic Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI), widely followed S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC), and growth-driven Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) have swung like a pendulum, alternating bear and bull markets.
Although 2023 has been a considerably better year for investors, they're still left with one key question unanswered: What's next for the stock market?
While there's not an economic datapoint or predictive tool that can, with 100% accuracy, forecast short-term directional movements in the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite, there is an assortment of metrics that have, historically, strongly correlated with moves in the broader market. One of these strongly correlated metrics made history this past week, and it provides a very clear outlook for what's expected to happen next for stocks.
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We're witnessing history -- and it may spell trouble for Wall Street
Since this year began, I've combed through a number of economic datapoints and predictive tools that either portend trouble for Wall Street or forecast greener pastures for equities. But few of these datapoints and predictive indicators possess the gravity of this week's metric of focus: commercial bank credit.
