Friends
An earnings miss by Home Depot and a Wall Street analyst downgrade of Caterpillar shares had the bears licking their chops as the trading day began. But, Fed Chair Powell’s dovish testimony before Congress helped turn the slightly bearish tide and stocks moved into positive territory for most of the afternoon. In the last 30 minutes of trading, however, buyers seemed to lose all interest and stocks dipped back into negative territory.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 33 points to finish the day at 26,057. The S&P 500 was down 2 points to close at 2,793. Gold was up $1 to trade at $1,330 per ounce, while oil was up $.18 to trade at $55.66 per barrel WTI.
All in all, it was a quiet trading session with very little direction or volatility. We continue to bump up against 2800 on the S&P 500 (for the 4th time in five months), and the bears want us to fail once again, while the bulls need to break thru resistance. To fail for the 4th time (a quadruple top) would be extremely discouraging for the bulls. In the meantime we search for the next catalyst. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
Jim
