I thought I was clear with my earlier comment with my opinion about what happens with the Fed...
I think 7 hikes is bogus. But it's bogus for a bad reason here. Whatever the Fed does end up doing, it's going to combine with what oil and commodities are doing, and let's say we do see a 1% FFR (as I implied). It'll be similar to a 2.5-3% FFR in overall effect.
I don't think they'll make it clear that they're going to do 4 hikes. They'll go "due to the uncertainty in the economy, after this 25 bps hike at this meeting, we're going to go into wait and see mode." And then what's likely to happen later is that credit markets will buckle and unless they decide to stand down (which if they do stand down about credit markets buckling, it would be a big surprise, even if the inflation situation says they should), they'll cave.
I thought once the tough comps came off, inflation would come down, but now I think what's likely to happen is commodities are going to be sticky for a very long time, but the demand side is going to get completely and thoroughly pummeled because of this, because we're at the point of no return here.
It's a bad situation.
Anyway...
I doubt this week's lows have traded, even including the afterhours. I think the overall market pauses again and sees relief when the Dow prints 31800...probably in 2 days at this point, but this is at the very least going to be one head and shoulders pattern that finally plays out for the S&P (there is also an inverse head and shoulders, but that's not going to be what plays out).
My question is do we react again to CPI if the market is completely hammered into the number, which seems likely to me (the thing that's awful here is that this CPI print already isn't very meaningful for me due to events in Eastern Europe). Maybe we sell off tomorrow, sell off Wednesday, then gap down hard and reverse on Thursday.