The Producer Price Index came in hot. Economists noticed. They wrote reports. Now everyone thinks the Fed will hike rates again in two weeks.
This changes nothing about technical analysis. Support holds or it doesn't. Resistance breaks or it doesn't. The PPI could print at 47% and a head-and-shoulders pattern would still resolve the exact same way it was going to resolve anyway.
But retail traders don't know this. They read "hot PPI" and panic-sell their NVDA calls at a loss. They read "another rate hike" and buy puts at the top of the hourly Bollinger Band. They do this because they think Jerome Powell's next 25 basis points will somehow invalidate a double bottom on the daily chart that took six weeks to form.
The Fedwatcher who issued the warning gets paid whether the Fed hikes or not. The economist who called the PPI hot gets paid whether you make money or not. The journalist who wrote this headline already moved on to the next headline before you finished reading the first one.
Meanwhile, price action continued doing exactly what it was going to do. The 50-day moving average didn't check the PPI report before deciding where to go. The MACD histogram didn't wait for Fed guidance. Volume came in or it didn't.
Somewhere right now, a guy who bought tech stocks in March 2023 is reading this PPI report and wondering if he should sell. He's down 60%. He held through every dip. But this PPI report, this one specifically, this is the news that will finally help him make an informed decision about his financial future.
The Fed's work is never done because the Fed's work is to convince you their work matters.
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