Friends
Stocks had a good start to the trading session but quickly retreated into negative territory (the Dow swinging from up 250 points to down 250 points) before finishing slightly lower for the day. A bigger than expected job openings number (JOLTs) and a not quite as bad ISM manufacturing number fed the good news is bad news narrative for stocks. But, for the most part market participants are waiting for the Fed’s announcement on interest rates tomorrow and the Fed Chair’s press conference.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 82 points to close at 32,650. The S&P 500 was down 15 points to finish the day at 3,856. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 97 points to close at 10,890. Gold was up $9 to trade at $1,650 per ounce, while oil was up $1.71 to trade at $88.24 per barrel WTI.
As mentioned, we will get the Fed’s decision on interest rates tomorrow and the expectation is that we will see the Fed Funds rates increased by 75 basis points taking it 3.75% to 4.00%. It will be interesting to see if the Fed Chair attempts to further lay out the Fed’s policy path going forward, or will he send a signal that the Fed would like to see how the effects of previous rate hikes are playing out before embarking on another aggressive series of hikes. We’ll let you know how it all plays out tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
