Even the Price of Milquetoast is Rising

milque·toast

noun: milquetoast; plural noun: milquetoasts

a timid or feeble person.

adjective: milquetoast

feeble, insipid, or bland.
"a soppy, milquetoast composer"

Origin
1930s: from the name of a cartoon character, Caspar Milquetoast, created by H. T. Webster in 1924.

It is hard to imagine a Fed Chair more timid in his supposed war on inflation in the name of price stability to make society "work" for everyone than Jerome Hayden "Jay" Powell. 

That said, during the final hour as I write this we finally are seeing some whipsaws after an especially muted initial reaction to the FOMC rate decision to hike another 25 bps as well as during the early part of Powell's press conference. 

Headed into META (and CMG EBAY MAT LRCX NOW) earnings tonight, the S&P faded a quick thirty handles during the presser even though Powell did not really say anything groundbreaking. In fact, virtually all of what Powell said seems to be the same recycled phrases from previous speeches and FOMC days. 

Microsoft weakness looks to have offset GOOGL strength on the day among mega caps, and SNAP's slaughter is a bit of a stain on growth. However, we still have a slew of mega cap techs to go in the next few weeks, namely META, then AAPL AMZN NVDA, as well as many large marquee names in general. 

The Federal Funds rate is now the highest it has been in twenty-two years. While equities seem to largely be taking all of this in stride, it still smacks of a complacent market ripe for a violent delayed reaction once higher rates for a longer period of time begins to truly be priced into historically rich leaders.