Friends Stocks limped to the finish line today, as there simply didn't seem to be anyone left around to do any buying. Trading for 2017 has now come to a close, but it was a good year for stocks. We'll talk more about that and what lies ahead in our 2018 First...
Friends As expected it was extremely quiet again today, but at least stocks are drifting upward instead of down. With just one more trading day it appears that 2017 is going to go quietly into the night. As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average...
Friends Nothing happened today. No really, nothing happened today. Go back to your shopping and spending time with family. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 28 points to finish the day at 24,774. The S&P 500 was up 2 points to close at 2,682....
Friends As expected, the markets were extremely quiet today. President Trump signed into law the tax bill and headed to Florida for the Christmas weekend. Other than that, there just wasn't much going on. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 27...
Friends Stocks started slow this morning, gathered some steam midday, and then seemed to run out of gas in the afternoon portion of the trading session. As analyst turn their attention to making predictions/guesses for what the market will do in 2018, 2017 looks to...
Friends The Republicans all gathered at the White House to celebrate the passing of the tax reform bill with a very pleased Donald J Trump. The market greeted the celebration with a major yawn. Stocks drifted aimlessly during the entire trading session, finally...
Friends The house did pass the tax bill this afternoon and now it heads to the senate for the vote. After a quick up opening, stocks spent the day modestly in negative territory. With the bullish action recently a little pause is surely not a surprise. You might see...
Friends The Fed did indeed raise the Fed Funds rate a quarter of a point today. That takes the rate to 1.25% -1.50%. In addition, the outlook for next year is 3 quarter point rates hikes that would take the Fed Funds rate to 2%-2.25% by the end of 2018. By the end of...
Friends Despite a nice move in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (led by Boeing and Goldman Sachs), stocks were mostly quiet today with the S&P only up slightly and the Nasdaq actually down for the day. The PPI number was a little hotter than expected which makes...
Friends As we wait for the 2 day FOMC meeting which begins tomorrow, and while the trading world immerses itself in trading Bitcoin futures, stocks had a quiet but positive day of trading. In our mind, that the Fed will raise rates a quarter of a point on Wednesday...
Friends The jobs number came in better than expected. 228,000 new jobs were created in November vs. the expectations of about 190,000. The unemployment rate remains at 4.1%, and average hourly earnings increased by .20% for the month and 2.5% year over year. All this...
Friends Stocks fared a bit better today than we have seen over the past several trading sessions. It certainly wasn't anything to get excited about if you are a bull, but at least the lackluster pattern that we had been seeing was broken for a day. We have the...
Friends It was a quiet day of trading with stocks basically hugging the break-even line for most of the trading session. The ADP private payroll number was good, which tees us up for Friday's non-farm payroll number. Nevertheless, neither the bulls nor the bears...
Friends Stocks tried to rally today, but sellers continued to appear as the afternoon dragged on. Finally, all of the market averages fell into negative territory, with the Dow leading the way. The ISM non-manufacturing (service sector) number came in a little light,...
Friends Though the headlines will show the Dow with a modest gain, this was a less than stellar day for stocks overall. The S&P gave up a nearly 1% early gain and the Nasdaq, which was weak all day long, ended with a greater than 1% loss. We have seen many...
