Friends
The amnesia market strikes again, as everything that seemed out of kilter yesterday, reversed itself today. Bonds rallied (rates dropped), oil prices fell, the dollar rallied and finally stocks rallied. Sentiment seems to change on a daily basis, but overall the mood seems cautious as we head into tomorrow’s non-farm payroll number.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 82 points to finish the day at 17,924. The S&P 500 was up 7 points to close at 2088. Gold was down $8 to trade at $1182 per ounce, while oil was down $2.07 to trade at $58.86 per barrel WTI.
Ok, we finally get to the all-important jobs report tomorrow. The “experts” are looking for a number of about 220,000 new jobs for April. Along with the unemployment number expected to come in at about 5.4%, let’s keep an eye on wages. We have just begun to see wages pick up, so it would be important for that to continue, for the Fed to be emboldened to begin to tighten monetary policy. Let’s see how tomorrow’s numbers play out.
Have a nice evening everyone.
