Friends
The volatility continues as the Nasdaq led the way lower in today’s trading session. Today’s jobs numbers were a bit confusing as the non-farm payroll number came in much less than expected, but the unemployment rate fell to 4.2% which was good. The Fed’s recent hawkish tone has sent a bit of a shockwave through the higher valued growth names and these high P/E multiple names have come under quite of bit of selling pressure lately. Ironically, a lot of stocks that have been left behind this year fared better in today’s downward move. Staples and higher dividend yielding stocks posted gains in a sort of flight to safety move, while the year’s winners saw the bulk of the selling pressure. Even Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon saw selling pressure today, and as you know they have been buoying the market averages for some time now. The good news is that stocks did close well off the lows of the day.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 59 points to finish the day at 34,580. The S&P 500 was down 38 points to close at 4,538. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 295 points to close at 15,085. Gold was up $22 to trade at $1,785 per ounce, while oil was down $.44 to trade at $66.06 per barrel WTI.
So, it was a volatile week for stocks. At the moment the S&P is down more than 4% from the yearly high, while the Nasdaq is down nearly 7% from the top. Given the move higher stocks have had throughout 2021 it is not a surprise that some of the gains are given back nor is it necessarily a bad thing in the big picture. What has changed though this week is that we have a new Covid variant introduced into the narrative and a seemingly much more hawkish Federal Reserve. Given all that, I suspect we will continue to see more volatility over the coming trading sessions. Stay tuned.
Have a great weekend everyone.
