Friends
The bears, who had been missing in action the last couple of weeks, showed up to play today. Stocks were soft at the open and headlines continued to pressure prices throughout the trading session. We have a big week for earnings, including this morning’s Johnson & Johnson’s just ok report. Others that we’ll hear from this week include IBM, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Ford, Texas Instruments, American and Southwest Airlines, Bristol-Myers, United Technologies, Union Pacific and Intel.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 301 points to finish the day at 24,404. The S&P 500 was down 37 points to close at 2,632. Gold was up $1 to trade at $1,283 per ounce, while oil was down $1.03 to trade at $52.77 per barrel WTI.
Trade talks with China, the government shutdown, along with the plethora of earnings reports will drive stock prices this week. It was not a surprise, given the move up we’ve seen the past few weeks, that stocks ran into some selling pressure today. Let’s see what tone earnings set for the week. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
