Friends
With the two day Fed meeting scheduled to begin tomorrow, markets seemed to be in a bit of a holding pattern, as neither the bulls nor the bears seemed interested in making anything more than a token gesture towards today’s trading session. Stocks spent the day waffling in a tight trading range between positive and negative territory, before finally ending mixed.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 15 points to finish the day at 17,229. The S&P 500 was down 2 points to close at 2019. Gold was down $29 to trade at $1,230 per ounce, while oil was down $1.25 to trade at $37.25 per barrel WTI.
As mentioned, the FOMC meeting begins tomorrow and we’ll get the Fed Statement on Wednesday afternoon. No one expects the Fed to raise rates at this meeting, but market participants will be trying to read the tea leaves (the dots) to ascertain just when the next rate hike may occur. In addition to the FOMC meeting there is a full calendar of economic data to chew on this week. We’ll get Retail Sales numbers, CPI, PPI, Housing Starts, Industrial Production, Jobless Claims, JOLTS, Leading Indicators and Consumer Sentiment. That should keep market participants busy.
Have a nice evening everyone.
