this is the daily notebook of mike santoli cnbcs senior markets commentator with ideas about trends stocks and market statistics there are too many solid counterpoints to the recession bear case to keep stocks from pushing the upper edge of their twomonth range even with federal reserve speakers declaring the toughlove party line on inflationfighting and bond yields and the dollar retaking some of their recent decline the s  p 500 has bobbled back up to the fridaymonday highs still enjoying a tailwind from underinvested quant traders and a helpful decline in volatility which expands hedge funds risk budget for equities aside from being near top of the postapril range and right at the 100day moving average this zone in the mid4100s on the s  p 500 also goes back to the intraday lows then the ytd lows too from the february ukraine invasion selloff a healthy ism services index with a welcome drop in the pricespaid component joins tuesdays temperate decline in job openings which has so far come with relatively little measurable attrition in current employment its also broadly consistent with the vaunted softish landing fed chair jerome powell has mentioned as the aspirational goal of this monetary tightening phase theres plenty left to prove along this front of course much phd brain power has been deployed to argue whether suppressing job listings while sparing currently filled jobs is a plausible goal or a fantasy the keepitsimple conclusion seems to be that its an expedient cover story for the fed to stick to as they hustle rates to and beyond neutral while trying not to seem as if its intentionally trying to boost unemployment fed officials might believe itll happen that way but even if they didnt theyd probably stick to that story anyway the debate over whether the midjune market low will prove to be the decisive low for this bear phase is a fairly wellbalanced one now technical studies cite the extreme positive breadth of stocks powering higher number of 20day highs the turn in the broader advancedecline line etc as one point in favor of the low being consequential though not every desired signal of a new bullmarket advance was triggered not every market inflection point follows a script this is a weightoftheevidence game the bulls have some ammo but we need to see how its used at both the may and june lows several readings of washedout technical and historically extreme underperformance of stocks lined up in a way that previously have led to very high chances the market would be higher over the subsequent 12 months if that holds it would suggest at minimum that likely downside by next spring would be somewhere above 3650 for the s  p 500 at minimum with average gains suggesting something better than that as upside potential that in itself wouldnt mean stocks are set to rip higher but it helps as a mental placeholder of probabilistically determined riskreward it must be said the glaring exceptions to when markets did well a year after those oversold extremes were clustered in the multiyear bear markets of 20002003 and 20072009 the current rally is perfectly in line with some of the countertrend relief bounces from those periods the call for an investor is whether the same degree of macrosystemic stress and economic vulnerability is at work today the 20002003 period seems to be the better match on some levels but the equity market now started with less lofty extremes to work off today marks seven months since he s  p 500s record high trailing five and 10year annualized total returns for stocks now are 126 and 136 still pretty good – longterm investors are doing fine here in 2000 seven months after the peak the comparable trailing gains over five and 10 years were 211 and 192 while this cycle is pretty distinctive postpandemic effects continue to fog the recessionornot argument with nominal growth strong and companies saying consumers remain in spend mode the market rhythms of 2022 have pretty neatly followed some historical templates ned davis research has a cycle composite chart for this year blending the annual seasonal tendency the electioncycle path and tenyear decade pattern in shape but not magnitude things are pretty well in tune  for what its worth market breadth wednesday is strong but not stupendous 21 updown volume on nyse 41 on nasdaq apple is up 3 and is now back above a 7 weighting in the s  p 500 how much more can it give the index from here credit spreads are rushing tighter confirming the risk embrace vix giving way below 22 near the longterm average level low end of the range not inconsistent with a more stable tape recently some argue it pays to hedge when cheap and there is a jobs report friday but it is summer and the market right or wrong is suggesting its making a tentative piece with the macropolicy setup for now