Friends
The bulls gave it a shot today. Stocks moved higher this morning with the Dow sporting a nice 400 gain at one point, but as we have seen a lot lately, the last hour of trading was not good for the bulls. After the close yesterday we got earning from Google and Microsoft. One (Microsoft) was a winner and one (Google) not so much. The mega cap growth stocks are getting all the attention while other quality names like UPS, Kimberly-Clark and Visa have had really good earnings lately. But as the saying goes if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it…
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 61 points to finish the day at 33,301. The S&P 500 was up 8 points to close at 4,183. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 1 point to close at 12,488. Gold was down $17 to trade at $1,886 per ounce, while oil was up $.49 to trade at $102.19 per barrel WTI.
As mentioned, rallies continue to be met with selling as it appears that institutional investors are still struggling to allocate assets and price in the Fed’s hawkish pivot. We mentioned that earnings might be good overall, and they have been, but that it may not matter at all right now (and it doesn’t appear to). In the long run earnings certainly matter, but at the moment the headwinds that we have waxed poetic about for months continued to be the story and likely will be for a while. Stay patient, this is a process that is difficult in real time, but necessary in the long run.
Have a nice evening everyone.
