Friends
The bulls ran out of gas before they could pull the quarter end rally across the finish line. Not surprisingly, stocks limped into the close on the final day of a quarter that saw a huge decline followed by an impressive rally, all while facing formidable economic and political headwinds. Have you ever seen a basketball game where one team erases a 20-point second half deficit to tie the game in the last minute, only to totally get blown out in overtime? That’s how today’s market action felt. The bulls used all their energy up earlier in the week.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 550 points to finish the day at 34,678. The S&P 500 was down 72 points to close at 4,530. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 221 points to close at 14,220. Gold was up $4 to trade at $1,942 per ounce, while oil was down $7.05 to trade at $100.77 per barrel WTI.
Bond yields continued to pull back a little after the rather large move higher that occurred during the first quarter. I suppose the takeaway from the first quarter of 2022 for the financial markets is that it could have been worse. Once again, given all that market participants had on their plate, the volatility that we saw in the first quarter was understandable. We have the non-farm payroll number tomorrow, so let’s see how the 2nd quarter gets underway.
Have a nice evening everyone.
