the stock market has all but stalled this week the sp 500’s 200day moving average has seemingly morphed from magnet to resistor it’s the summer nyse composite volume was the lowest of the year on thursday according to dow jones data still bulls mustn’t complain the wall street benchmark sits just shy of a fourmonth high having bounced 168  off the midjune low the rally we are told has been powered by hopes that peak us inflation can help the federal reserve be more gentle in its monetary spanking it has also been propelled by a generally wellreceived second quarter company earnings season oh and falling oil prices too this week’s consolidation thus feels like bulls and bears have battled to an equilibrium so let’s look quickly at an example of each the first fundamentalsfocused the second of a more technical bent ultimately it is corporate earnings and the multiple applied to them that should determine the trajectory of stocks by the middle of the week companies representing 95 of the sp 500’s market capitalization had reported notes julian emanuel strategist at evercore isi both earnings and sales growth came in ahead of forecsat doubtless and that helped underpin the summer stock surge as “top and bottom line results cleared a low sentiment bar into the quarter” unfortunately there may be trouble ahead emanuel reckons waning global economic growth means next 12month earnings per share estimates have peaked they forecast an sp 500 eps of 232 compared to current consensus of 244 “an earnings ‘speed bump’ sets the stage for renewed market volatility as observed even in nonrecession years like 2015 when china weakness was the predominant global headwind and notably heading into typical negative fall seasonality” warns emanuel fundstrat’s tom lee meanwhile is typically bullish among a number of positive factors he uses to counter bearish fretting in his latest note is this rebuttal of the view that the market may be vulnerable because it never experienced “capitulation” the chart below shows the percentage of sp 500 stocks that were more than 20 off their 52week high at various times since 1995 in other words stocks in their own bear market lee notes that the figure surged to 73 on june 17th this year “this was only exceeded three times in the past 30 years each of the three prior instances was the market bottom we think this is the fourth instance” he writes “and stocks have the best forward returns when this figure exceeds 54 as shown below in 3m 6m and 12m the best decile for returns is when this figure is oversold more than 54 hence buy the dip regime is in force” lee concludes a riskoff tone was enveloping markets sp 500 futures es00 were down 08 to 4254 and wti crude cl1 dipped 11 to 8952 a barrel there was no scramble into the perceived safety of us government bonds however as inflation worries lingered the 10year treasury yield tmubmusd10y rose 48 points to 2928 gold gc00 fell 03 to 1767 an ounce about 2 trillion worth of options are due to expire on friday including 975 billion of sp 500linked contracts and 430 billion linked to individual stocks according to bloomberg thin summer trading may make this hard for wall street to digest shares in bed bath  beyond bbby are down another 40 or so in premarket action after it was confirmed late on thursday that investor ryan cohen had dumped his whole stake in the struggling retailer deere shares de are down 58 after the tractormaker delivered an earnings miss rough day for crypto too without an apparent fresh catalyst bitcoin btcusd is slumping 73 to 21706 and ethereum ethusd is off 75 to 1737 peak inflation not at the factory gate in germany data released on friday showed producer prices in the world’s fourth biggest economy surged to a record 372 over the year to july compared to 327 in june as surging energy costs took their toll consumer confidence in the uk hit a record low helping to push the pound gbpusd below 119 indeed concerns about the european economy has the dollar again revisiting parity with the euro eurusd and the dollar index dxy up 02 to 10719 close to a 20year high awks indonesia says xi and putin will attend the g20 summit in bali in november best of the web the fed is not getting dovish deal with it mark wahlberg’s gym chain feels the burn odessa is defiant the market appears to be enduring another bout of meme stock mania stories about 20 yearolds swiftly making 110 million on corporate strugglers like bed bath  beyond bbby are so hot right now so as a public service announcement and with emphasis that the following should certainly not be taken as investment advice here is a chart published this week from sp global market intelligence showing the most shorted companies in the us here were the most active stockmarket tickers on marketwatch as of 6 am eastern drink more – by order of the government  snap scraps selfie drone venice italy not venice beach need to know starts early and is updated until the opening bell 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