Friends
As expected, the Fed did not raise interest rates today, but short of a total unforeseen event, the FOMC is poised to raise rates in December. After that, they are signaling that we are likely to see 3 more hikes in 2019, and then an additional 3 hikes in 2020 before they would achieve what Chairman Powell, at this moment, views as a neutral stance for the Fed. Of course, if the army of pessimistic economist and analyst are right, we will be in a recession by then and the likelihood of rate hikes will be zero. So, for now, we’ll just accept that the economy is growing and the Fed is taking the opportunity to move interest rates off the emergency level that we saw for years. Where they eventually end up will likely be/should be dictated by the direction of the economy.
As for stocks, it was a quiet day of trading after yesterday’s surge. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 11 points to close at 26,191. The S&P 500 was down 7 points to finish the day at 2,806. Gold was down $4 to trade at $1,224 per ounce, while oil was down (for the 9th straight day) $1.13 to trade at $60.54 per barrel WTI.
A little pause after yesterday’s surge in stocks is not a bad thing for the bulls. Let’s see if they are able to hold on to the nice gains that we’ve seen this week tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
