Friends
Stocks had an interesting day of trading on this first session of the 2nd quarter. By mid-morning the Dow was sporting a triple digit loss and it appeared that the bears might have something to get fired up about. But as the afternoon wore on, the market averages erased a good portion of the earlier in the day losses. On the economic front, the ISM and PMI manufacturing indexes provide a mixed picture this morning with ISM better than expected while PMI was a bit less than expected. We’ll be focusing on employment as the week unfolds.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 12 points to finish he day at 20,650. The S&P 500 was down 3 points to close at 2,385. Gold was up $3 to trade at $1,254 per ounce, while oil was down $.33 to trade at $50.27 per barrel WTI.
As mentioned, we will be focused on the employment numbers this week as we will get ADP Private Payroll number on Wednesday, and then the non-farm payroll number on Friday. After this week’s employment data, we’ll find ourselves beginning a new earnings season over the next several weeks. As we have mentioned, stocks aren’t cheap so it would be nice to see a good round of earnings strength to help justify the confidence investors have shown in stocks since the election. Let’s see how the week plays out.
Sorry that our phones were down earlier, they are back up and running now.
Have a nice evening everyone.
