Confused Week Continues

May 12, 2016 | Market Commentary

Friends

We had another somewhat confusing day of trading as stocks opened higher, sold off midday, then worked back into positive territory in the later part of the trading session. Other than the business channels droning on incessantly about the shares of Apple hitting new recent lows (the way the media obsesses about one single company is really amazing), once again there really wasn’t any real catalyst with regards to today’s trading. The weekly jobless claims number was worse than expected, which may begin to confirm last Friday’s disappointing non-farm payroll number. Regardless, with some added volatility stocks still seem to be set adrift at the moment.

For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 9 points to close at 17,720. The S&P 500 was basically flat to finish the day at 2064. Gold was down $5 to trade at $1,270, while oil was up $.24 to trade at $46.47 per barrel WTI.

Neither the bulls or the bears have been able to lay claim to victory so far this week, as stocks have wandered both into positive and negative territory during this week’s trading sessions. We’ll get PPI, Business Inventories and Consumer Sentiment tomorrow. The PPI number will be of interest as market participants attempt to read Fed tea leaves with regards to the June FOMC meeting. Let’s see how the week ends up tomorrow.

Have a nice evening everyone.

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