Friends
Despite constant turmoil stocks had a pretty good first quarter of 2023. The S&P 500 finished up nearly 7% while the Nasdaq was up a whopping 16%. Given the circumstances and the wild ride that the bond market was on in the first quarter, to me the performance of stocks is quite impressive.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 415 points to finish the day at 33,274. The S&P 500 was up 58 points to close at 4,109. The Nasdaq composite Index was up 208 points to close at 12,221. Gold was down $10 to trade at $1,987 per ounce, while oil was up $1.14 to trade at $75.51 per barrel WTI.
The narrative has been for a year now that corporate earnings are about to fall of the cliff at any moment. It hasn’t happened yet, but in a couple of weeks we will get another look at corporate America’s report card. In the meantime, again, despite all the things that went wrong in the first quarter of 2023, stocks actually fared well. Let’s enjoy the weekend and get back at it on Monday.
Have a great weekend everyone.
