Friends
Stocks continued to drift with a slight negative bias today as economic data continues to send mixed messages. The recent corporate earnings season provided the bulls some evidentiary hope for the coming quarter or two, but today’s beige book report confirms that whatever momentum the economy had is waning. That leads us to wonder just what the Fed will be focused on during the upcoming FOMC meeting.
As for stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 20 points to close at 21,008. The S&P 500 was down 1 point to finish the day at 2,411. Gold was up $7 to trade at $1,272 per ounce, while oil was down $1.44 to trade at $48.23 per barrel WTI.
Back to the economic picture, and of course we get the ADP employment number tomorrow as well as the weekly jobless claims. On Friday we get the non-farm payroll number. We’ll see just how fired up the Fed voters are by the time the meeting starts on the 13th. Strong jobs data should give them enough reason to consider the rate hike at this upcoming meeting, but it sure isn’t as clear cut as it appeared just a few weeks ago. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
