Friends
Nothing happened today. No, I really mean it, absolutely nothing happened in the markets today. The weekly new unemployment claims number was a non-event. The number has remained under 400,000 but just barely for months now. No news there. Stocks just seem to be rotating from economically sensitive to defense names and back about every other day. Remember, money has been flowing out of stock mutual funds for years now so when managers want to buy something new, they almost have to sell something else to do so.
For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19 points to close at 13,597. The S&P 500 was down less than a point to finish the day at 1460. Gold was down $1 to trade at $1770 per ounce, while oil calmed down to trade virtually unchanged at $91.87 per barrel WTI.
The concern for investors for the past week or so is the bevy of earnings “warnings” we are getting from various companies. As these companies warn that their earnings are not going to live up to expectations, the concern turns to slowing earnings. For a few years now we have had healthy growth in earnings, but that is definitely slowing. We’ll soon see what this all means during earnings season. Are the lower expectations built in to today’s prices? By the way, who got the Seinfeld reference?
Have a nice evening everyone.
