Friends Being the last day of the quarter, it appeared that traders had already packed it in for the weekend. Trading was light and volatility virtually nonexistent. The market averages floated mainly near the breakeven level for most of the trading session. Near the...
Friends Stocks managed to post gains today despite a very quiet day of trading with low volatility. The last look at 4th quarter 2016 GDP showed that the quarter was a little better than had been previously reported, but as we mentioned yesterday, that is old news at...
Friends All was quiet on the political front (well, kind of anyway), and all was quiet on the stock trading front also. The only economic data point that we got today was the February Pending Home Sales Index number which came in much higher than expected and should...
Friends After 8 straight down days in a row, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finally registered an up day. Now granted, the 8 straight down days did not even add up to a 2% loss on the index, but the direction was becoming a habit. A robust consumer confidence number...
Friends As you all know, Speaker Ryan and the House of Representatives decided not to even bring the health care bill to a vote last Friday. Stocks really didn't have any major reaction to that decision, but it did come later in the trading session. After chewing on...
Friends Stocks were all over the map today as wrangling over the health care bill among Republicans continues. When it looked like the vote would happen and that the White House might have had some success persuading the Freedom Caucus to get on board, stocks were...
Friends Political wrangling over the proposed health care bill as well as a terrorist attack in London dominated the headlines. Stocks traded down early, continuing yesterday's selloff, but by mid-morning the market averages reversed those losses and the rest of the...
Friends Fears that the GOP can't get together to get its own health care bill passed in the House (remember, all they need is their own party members to pass it), contributed to an uneasiness that was building since yesterday's House Intelligence Committee...
Friends It was another day of political theater which once again seemed to distract market participants more than it affected their trading choices. For the most part, stocks drifted aimlessly while the FBI Director and the NSA Director answered questions before the...
Friends After yesterday's Fed induced rate hike "excitement" which fueled a nice rally in stocks, today we reverted back to the type of action we have seen over the past few weeks. Stocks drifted aimlessly with very little conviction from either the bulls or the...
Friends As expected, the Fed raised the Fed Funds rate today a quarter of a point. The range is now .75% to 1% with the target now at .875%. The statement itself was a bit more hawkish but the path to future rate hikes appears to be about as expected. The Fed now sees...
Friends Wall Street had a snow day (although the storm pretty much missed New York City). Trading was quiet, but stocks spent the entire session in negative territory. Though the bears haven't been able to totally break the animal spirits that have been developing,...
Friends Whether it's because of the coming snowstorm that is schedule to hit the northeast beginning tomorrow, or the FOMC meeting which also is scheduled for tomorrow, market participants really didn't seem interested in today's proceedings. Whether the snowstorm...
Friends The jobs report was mostly as expected with 235,000 new jobs created. The unemployment rate came in at 4.7%, and average hourly earnings number was up .2% (year over year up 2.8%). So as we have seen for some time now, the job situation is much better in this...
Friends Well, there was a little volatility today, but if you just looked at the closing numbers you wouldn't know it. Stocks spent some time in positive territory early and then by the afternoon we had a little bit of a selloff underway. But that selloff stopped...
