Friends
It was another busy day of earnings releases and old stalwarts ATT and Coca-Cola pleasantly surprised, but the big winner of the day was Boeing, up nearly 10% for the day and single handedly accounted for the entire gain in the Dow. Other than Boeing, stocks were extremely quiet in general. It appears that, in general, shares were priced accordingly. Unless, you miss big, your stock is hanging in there, but you have to beat in a big way to add to the share price you entered earnings season with. Thus, the somewhat muted reaction so far to a pretty darn good earnings season.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 97 points to finish the day at 21,711. The S&P 500 was up less than a point to close at 2,477. Gold was up $7 to trade at $1,260 per ounce, while oil was up $.78 to trade at $48.67 per barrel WTI.
We also got a Fed statement this afternoon and the conclusion of the FOMC meeting, in which the committee indicated that balance sheet reduction (selling bonds) will begin relatively soon. That was not a surprise and analysts believe that the Fed might start the process by September of this year. Of course, the likely will be very deliberate as not to disturb the market place (at least they hope not to disturb the market place). We still have earnings from Facebook and Amazon to come this week. Both stocks have had huge run ups into their release so it will be interesting to see how their share prices react. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
