The S & P 500 has held on to most of its first-half gains and has made a series of higher lows since mid-August. And while 2% is the central-banker ideal, equity markets historically are comfortable with inflation under 4% or so. The equal-weight S & P 500 is about where it was last Thanksgiving and small-cap indexes have been sideways and stuck for a year-and-a-half. Kolovos has been anticipating a "long and winding road to 4800" for the S & P 500, provided it doesn't crack support near 4300 before then. .SPX YTD mountain S & P 500 YTD Such a scenario would then certainly give rise to a vexing "Now what?"

---

Persons: –, Ron Adler, Morgan, Wall, It's, we've, Ned Davis, Worth, John Kolovos, Kolovos Organizations: Wall, PPI, ECB, Citi, Federal Reserve, Atlanta Fed, Ned Davis Research, Dow Jones Industrial, Nvidia Locations: China, Rosh, Yom Kippur