My thoughts exactly. The Fed is still in their “Grand Experiment” with their excessive & much too prolonged (IMO) easy-money policies & the unintended consequences have yet to manifest in the stock market. Historically, rates cuts have been stimulative because (A) the Fed had enough room to drop them substantially from higher levels and (B) a relatively sudden drop in rates is stimulative but as you postulate, we’ve never had such an extended period (now over a decade) of extremely low rates & so how much of a benefit is another 1/2% – 1% drop in rates going to provide to the economy at this point? What corporation or individual that was carrying debt at a high rate hasn’t yet refinanced already by now? As such, that leaves a much smaller pool of corporations & individuals to benefit from any future rate cuts at this point (e.g.- primarily just new businesses & new homeowners) than we normally have during a rate cutting cycle.

If you’re referring to yesterday’s breakout or pop to new highs on the indexes, yes although I believe price comes first with volume a distant second. With that being said, breakouts that are not confirmed on considerable volume expansion run a higher rate of failing as do those that occur with negative divergences & overbought readings (of which all 3 applied to yesterday’s breakout to new highs).

Did you get a chance to view the recent video covering the precious metals & miners? https://rightsideofthechart.com/gold-gdx-us-dollar-precious-metals-analysis-7-9-19/

I outlined a pullback/buy zone for gold which also aligns with a pullback/support area for the EUR/USD. I highlighted that as more of a scale-in zone rather than a hard entry point based on the reasons covered in that video. Essentially, my confidence of where gold goes in the very near-term isn’t very high or else I would add it as an official trade now or as a setup if it falls to a specific level. As of now, I suspect gold may flounder around for a bit longer but I remain both intermediate & longer-term bullish & think that a scale-in strategy for longer-term investors is probably the best way to go right now.

Sorry I can’t be of much more help right now but I never try to force an opinion if I don’t have a good read on something & right now, the near-term direction of gold isn’t very clear to me. Here’s a 120-min chart with some nearby support levels. If gold can hold above this trendline & mount another bounce from here, any new high soon would be a divergent high (on the 60 & 120-min charts). Should it break below this TL, the 130 support level, as well as the 128ish level (top & bottom of that gap), are key levels & the same as that key 128-130 level that I’ve been highlighting on my weekly chart for over a year now… i.e- very key support.