Friends
It was another ugly reversal day for stocks. After a benign CPI report, stocks rocketed higher in early trading with the Dow up more than 400 points in mid-morning trading. But as we have seen for the past couple of weeks stocks drifted back to earth throughout the afternoon but did hang on to small gains by the close. As mentioned, today’s CPI number was about as expected with the index up 0.2% for July and 3.2% over the last 12 months.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 52 points to finish the day at 35,176. The S&P 500 was up 1 point to close at 4,468. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 15 points to close at 13,737. Gold was down $4 to trade at $1,946 per ounce, while oil was down $1.65 to trade at $82.83 per barrel WTI.
Remember, although inflation is moderating back to “normal” it doesn’t mean that prices are going back to where they were a couple of years ago. What it means is that the pace of inflation is moderating. That’s still a good thing and likely would mean the Fed might be able to soften monetary policy at some point. Anyway, let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
