Friends
The “a china deal is close” rallies have become more and more anemic over the past several weeks. Nevertheless, stocks still appear to have an upward tilt to them. This morning’s ADP private payroll number came in lighter than expected with 129,000 new jobs added in March vs. an estimate of 179,000. We’ll soon find out if this is a precursor to a lighter than expected non-farm payroll number on Friday. In the meantime, economic data both here and abroad continues to be mixed.
As for stocks, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 38 points to finish the day at 26,218. The S&P 500 was up 6 points to close at 2,873. Gold was down $1 to trade at $1,294 per ounce, while oil was down $.13 to trade at $62.45 per barrel WTI.
We are still more than a week away from earnings season kick off. Next Friday we get releases from a group of large banks, and then the following week the pace starts to pick up. This week is still all about Friday’s jobs number, so let’s get through that first, before we turn our attention to what will be a very interesting corporate earnings season.
Have a nice evening everyone.
