Friends
Stocks attempted to rally from an early morning selloff, but by the end of the trading session the selling pressure was just a bit much for the bulls to counter. Overnight, reports on the coronavirus from the CDC seemed to cause a little more concern than we have seen over the past couple of weeks. Again, aside from the human suffering component, which is just awful, the economic effects of the virus could be extremely detrimental to global growth.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 128 points to finish the day at 29,423. The S&P 500 was down 5 points to close at 3,373. Gold was up $7 to trade at $1,578 per ounce, while oil was up $.46 to trade at $51.63 per barrel WTI.
If you could remove the concerns and likely consequences of the coronavirus from the equation, you could make a case that the economy and corporate earnings are just fine. Slow, deliberate growth that doesn’t cause inflation has been the perfect environment for stocks over the past decade. But, of course, unknowns are what threaten the status quo. Let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
