Friends
Wow, what a quiet day of trading. Stocks just drifted throughout the session. On the economic front, the weekly jobless claims number broke the 300,000 level, as only 284,000 new claims were made. The PMI Manufacturing Index slowed a bit, but was still strong, but New Homes Sales fell back after May’s lofty number (which was revised down, also). Regardless, traders just didn’t seem to want to get involved today.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial was down 2 points to close at 17,083. The S&P 500 was up less than a point to finish the day at 1987. Gold was down $12 to trade at $1292 per ounce, while oil was down $1.12 to trade at $102 per barrel WTI.
As for earnings, it looks like earnings are on track to grow by better than 8% for the year after last year’s 6% gain. This year’s advance in share prices is more in line with actual earnings growth as opposed to last year’s massive gain in share prices vs. moderate earnings growth (P/E expansion). Let’s see how the week ends tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
