Friends
Despite some tumult coming from the White House today, stocks continued to ascend to higher levels, as any selling over the past several trading sessions has been met with buyers. Janet Yellen’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee seemed to give traders a short pause, but despite bonds selling off because of rate hike worries, a stronger dollar and a hotter than expected PPI number, stock buyers reappeared late morning and share prices stayed in positive territory for the rest of the day.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 92 points to finish the day at 20,504. The S&P 500 was up 9 points to close at 2,337. Gold was up $3 to trade at $1,229 per ounce, while oil was up $.27 to trade at $53.20 per barrel WTI.
This melt up in stock prices seems to be confounding many market pundits, but for the time being the momentum to the upside is the reality. Are conditions getting overbought? Are prices getting too expensive? Will the Trump agenda which has spurred this market excitement run into trouble when it comes to implementation? Will the Fed become more hawkish and raise rates more aggressively? There are many questions to be answered and many hurdles to clear, but one thing has become evident- momentum is pushing stocks higher. Let’s see how this week continues to play out.
Have a nice evening everyone.
