Friends
The CPI number which measures inflation at the consumer level came in a little hotter than expected this morning, but evidently not too hot for the bulls. It’s so funny because Goldman Sachs put out a piece before the number indicating what direction stocks would trade and at what percentage move it would be at each possible number for the release. The index climbed .4% for the month of February (3.2% year over year) which in the Goldman report indicated stocks would drop more than a half of a percent. Just the opposite happened. Guessing market responses to economic data is a difficult game. That has become the adage these days. You can give me the data and I still couldn’t tell you exactly how stocks would react to that data. For instance, you could tell me right now today, who was going to win the election and I still couldn’t tell you how stocks would react.
Anyway, as for today by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 235 points to finish the day at 39,005. The S&P 500 was up 57 points to close at 5,175. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 246 points to close at 16,265. Gold was down $27 to trade at $2,161 per ounce, while oil was down $.16 to trade at $77.77 per barrel WTI.
Bonds did sell off a bit as would be expected with rates ticking higher in response to the CPI number. I guess all in all the number wasn’t much out of line, but it will be interesting to see if the Fed is willing to start cutting rates given the downward movement in inflation has appeared to have stalled. In the meantime, let’s see the rest of the week unfolds.
Have a nice evening everyone.
