Friends
Stocks had a lot of headwinds to deal with today, beginning with the weaker than expected ADP private sector job report. The market had been looking for about 170,000 new jobs created in March (some estimates were as high as 240,000), but the report indicated that only 158,000 new jobs were created. Then we got the ISM non-manufacturing index which was slightly weaker than economists had estimated. As the day wore on, sabre rattling by North Korea threatening a nuclear attack on the United States sure didn’t help (better leave Hawaii alone), and finally a Fed Governor indicated that asset purchases could be finished by year-end. Ok, that was quite a wall of worry for stocks to climb today. Yes, today all of this mattered and stocks got clobbered.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 111 points to finish the day at 14,550. The S&P 500 got walloped closing down 16 points to finish trading at 1553. Gold was down $17 to trade at $1558 per ounce, while oil was down $2.79 to trade at $94.40 per barrel WTI.
After the robust first quarter for stocks, traders seem to be ready to sell things this week when bad news hits. We had been ignoring bad news for months. I have mentioned that we seemed to trade as if things didn’t matter. Well, so far this week, things seem to matter. Of course, tomorrow could be a day when things don’t matter again and it’s back to the TINA (there is no alternative) market. Of course Friday’s employment number will be a tone setter. We’ll be watching.
Have a nice evening everyone.
