Friends
As you all know, Speaker Ryan and the House of Representatives decided not to even bring the health care bill to a vote last Friday. Stocks really didn’t have any major reaction to that decision, but it did come later in the trading session. After chewing on it all weekend, traders seem inclined to sell the news this morning under the belief that the Trump administration would now have trouble getting their agenda through Congress and that the “Trump trade” was now in jeopardy (weakness in many sectors over the past few weeks could indicate that this was already a concern). Well, that all lasted for about 3 hours, because by midday stocks were already recovering and by the close the dip buyers had all but erased the nearly 1% drop in early trading.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 45 points to close at 20,550. The S&P 500 was down 2 points to finish the day at 2,341. Gold was up $6 to trade at $1,254 per ounce, while oil was down $.16 to trade at $47.81 per barrel WTI.
Next up on the political agenda appears to be taxes. I purposely didn’t use the term tax reform, because the belief is that the Administration may push for more of a simplified tax cut than a complex overhaul. After the disarray we saw in the Republican party last week, it has become more doubtful that the Trump agenda is simply going to fly through the political process. Remember, the “Trump trade” was predicated on the belief that with the Presidency and both Houses, that the Republican agenda would be able to be moved forward. As we saw last week, it isn’t going to be so easy. We’ll catch up on the economic calendar as the week progresses.
Have a nice evening everyone.
