Friends
As expected, the Fed did not change interest rates at the conclusion of the 2 day Fed meeting which began yesterday. As a matter of fact, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the Fed hasn’t even thought about raising interest rates and likely won’t for a long time. Unfortunately the reason that the Fed isn’t even considering anything but full force monetary easing is because they are very concerned about the economy and the effects of the shutdown. As we have indicated, the Fed’s liquidity has fueled stocks, but the economy still has a long road ahead before it can be declared anything close to healthy.
As for stocks, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 282 points to finish the day at 26,989. The S&P 500 was down 17 points to close at 3,190. Gold was up $24 to trade at $1,745 per ounce, while oil was up $.34 to trade at $39.28 per barrel WTI.
Despite Nasdaq’s continuous climb, fueled by Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a few others, stocks seem to have run into some resistance this week. The “overbought” conditions may need to be resolved before we can move higher. Of course, as I mentioned yesterday, I’m an old worrier, so who knows- maybe stocks just keep going up despite the economic softness.
Have a nice evening everyone.
