Friends
We had good earnings from some major banks, but after an initial pop the shares of these behemoths deteriorated with only JP Morgan holding onto to a small gain. It will be interesting to see if this is a pattern that could develop over the next few weeks, given stocks have been very strong as we entered this earnings season. Will there be a bit of a sell on the news reaction. I guess we’ll find out together.
As for today, like the bank shares the market averages gave up early gains and by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the lone winner (and Dow Component United Health Group accounted for the entire gain) up 113 to finish the day at 34,509. The S&P 500 was down 4 points to close at 4,505. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 24 points to close at 14,113. Gold was down $4 to trade at $1,959 per ounce, while oil was down $1.52 to trade at $75.37 per barrel WTI.
Given the power of some of the gains in stocks this week it wasn’t really surprising to see things run out of gas a bit today. We had good news on the inflation front and that helped spark the rally, but now we will peel the onion back a little bit and see how Corporate America is doing as earnings reports are released over the coming weeks. Stay tuned.
Have a great weekend everyone.
