THE BIG IDEA
The Prime Wave was unanimous and unambiguous about the topic for this week’s Big Idea.
New Fed chair Kevin Warsh used some variation of the “unanimous and unambiguous” phrase four times during his first press conference (transcript here) last week.
“I am pleased to report that members of the FOMC are unambiguous and unanimous: This Committee will deliver price stability.”
“this committee unambiguously and unanimously have decided we are going to deliver on that.”
“the commitment to deliver is strong, unanimous, and unambiguous.”
“The group was unanimous and unambiguous on it.”
He wants us all to know the Fed is really, really determined to squash inflation.
The Prime Wave is not a fan of the many thousands of publications out there that insist on giving you their analysis or summary of whatever was in the news that day. Having said that, we are going to veer uncomfortably close to doing exactly that right now.
Here are two things we think we think:
Let’s see how determined Warsh is in stamping out inflation the first time a crisis comes along. As the great economist Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has plans until they get hit for the first time."
It is very rare for the head of a government agency, or any middle manager in any business, to intentionally try to make their agency/department less relevant. Warsh seems equally determined to do exactly that. He wants less communication and less guidance from the Fed, preferring instead that the market figures out for itself what to do.
On that second point, below we have a chart from Payden & Rygel plotting the word count of FOMC press releases after their meetings.
What does this mean for us as investors in the stock market? Probably not that much. You might have noticed that the stock market sold off immediately after Warsh’s press conference and then the next day went right back up to where it was.
There is widespread concern that Warsh’s promise/threat to provide less guidance will lead to more volatility in the market. That could happen. Blind speculation probably is not what the Federal Reserve Bank intends to have happen, so maybe a Fed version of the famous TACO trade will come about.
But let’s not overthink the consequences of the Fed’s communication style. They have a task force for that!
SEEN ON THE INTERNETS
It has been a while since we checked in with Jeff Hirsch of Almanac Trader. He often has some interesting insights based on seasonal patterns in the stock market.
Recently, he posted some information on how the market(s) behave during June in “mid-term” years such as the current one.
The chart may be a little hard to read: the solid lines are the averages going back to 1950, the dashed lines are where we are in June 2026 so far. The main point is we are most likely going to continue trending down through the end of the month.
Of course, there is no law that says this year has to obey the averages. We just need to be aware that the historical seasonal trend is pointing down.
NUMBERS ONLY
$985.82 | While everyone has been dazzled by SpaceX, semiconductors, and AI, shares of boring old Caterpillar (CAT) hit an all-time high of $985.82 on Friday. |
5 | As of Monday morning, the NASDAQ 100 index will have 5 new members: Astera Labs, CoreWeave, Nebius Group, Rocket Lab, and Teradyne. |
28.15% | Shares of Moderna (MRNA) jumped 28.15% last week. It benefitted from a favorable FDA report, fuzzy warm feelings for the biotech sector in general, and some short covering. |
SWINGEX INDEX
As of market close on: 18 June 2026
Swingy says: The index thinks its in the World Cup! It has a score of zero! Traders should wait for a clearer signal.
Learn more about how the Swingex Index works here.
WATCHER
Stocks highlighted here each week are not recommendations to buy or sell. They are provided as ideas for swing traders to follow up on with their own research.
CHEF (Chef’s Warehouse): They used to say that stocks take the stairs going up and the elevator going down. I’m not sure if that is still true, but here is one stock taking the stairs.
Chef’s Warehouse got knocked around like most stocks during March. After that, it has been a steady climb for the stock. It took one step up to the mid-$60s range and then another step to the upper $70s.
It appears to be searching for that third step now. In recent days, it has moved up on heavy volume, giving us an indication that it may still have further higher to go before it levels off again.
Worst case, it just starts trending sideways from where it is now.