Friends
It was an interesting day of trading in the markets as a very quiet morning turned into a slightly frantic midday move when Donald Trump Jr. tweeted and released emails concerning his meeting with a Russian “attorney” who had supposed political information last year. The algorithms quickly turned a decent advance into a cascading downturn. After the Dow fell more than 100 points, things did settle down and stocks recovered to post modest gains/losses for the trading session. As we are well aware by now, politics can affect the markets at the drop of a hat. It’s just part of today’s investment landscape. But it appears, that after the initial “surprise/shock”, traders move past it quickly.
As for the markets, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial was up a fraction to finish the day at 21,409. The S&P 500 was down 1 point to close at 2,425. Gold was up $2 to trade at $1,216 per ounce, while oil was up $.69 to trade at $45.09 per barrel WTI.
Our first look at earnings was PepsiCo’s release this morning, and it was a good one. Both top and bottom line were impressive, but the shares were actually off just a bit during trading. That may be telling us that good news might already be priced into consumer non-durables such as PepsiCo. Over the next few weeks we’ll learn a lot about valuation and just how well priced shares are. I do think, just as with last quarter, earnings will be good this quarter. How stocks react remains to be seen.
Have a nice evening everyone.
