Friends
After stocks had posted nice gains to begin the week, yesterday just at the close, came news of a Wall Street Journal interview with President Trump where he reiterated his intentions to go forward with tariffs if things don’t go well this week with the Chinese. In addition, prompted by the interviewer he tossed out a tariff idea directly at Apple and the iPhone. Talk about throwing cold water on a rally! But, after early morning weakness stocks battled back to post gains for the day, a nice victory for the bulls.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 108 points to finish the day at 24,748. The S&P 500 was up 8 points to close at 2,682. Gold was down $9 to trade at $1,213 per ounce, while oil was up $.10 to trade at $51.73 per barrel WTI.
Tomorrow, late morning, all eyes will be on Fed Chair Jerome Powell as he speaks at the Economic Club of New York. Traders will be looking for signs of the Chair softening his stance on interest rate hikes for next year given evidence that the economy may be beginning to slow. The markets will want the Chair to emphasize that the Fed will continue to be data dependent and that rate hikes will be enacted only if the economy supports such action. As for today, the bulls finally showed a little resilience. Let’s see if they can build on that.
Have a nice evening everyone.
