Friends   It was a quiet start to this holiday shortened trading week. With no glaring headlines to deal with, market participants were mostly uninterested in making any major commitments as the market averages drifted while the long end of the yield curve sold...

Friends   Stocks tried to push higher at various intervals during today’s trading session, but in the end some traders were just not comfortable holding into the 3-day weekend. Nasdaq led by Apple, Meta and Nvidia was able to hold onto gains, but those gains were...

Friends   Both yesterday’s CPI data and today’s PPI data were hotter than expected. Yesterday, bonds did sell off, but they rallied today. Stocks didn’t seem bothered by the data at all. The market averages all moved higher as if they have no concern at all about...

Friends   Watching Fed Chair Powell testify before the Senate Banking Committee this morning, I concluded that they should just put a cardboard cutout of the Chairman at the table while the Senators bloviate to the cameras. They know he won't/can’t comment on...

Friends   This morning’s jobs data was a bit of a mixed bag. Non-farm payrolls came in at 143,000 vs. the 170,000 analysts expected, while the unemployment rate came in at 4% which is a little better than the 4.1% expected. Average hourly earnings were hotter...

Friends   It was another mixed day for stocks with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 posting modest gains while the Dow moved lower. After the close we get an earnings report from Amazon and tomorrow morning we will get a look at the non-farm payroll number. Analysts’...

Friends   Despite a disappointing earnings release from Google after the close yesterday, stocks found their footing today and were mostly able to move higher. Nasdaq was able to squeeze out a small gain, but the Dow carried the water for stocks in general....

Friends   Stocks mainly traded higher today with the market averages adding different percentage gains across the board. Tariff talk continues to be front and center, but we also are in another very busy week of earnings. We still have behemoths Google and Amazon...

Friends   In what is likely to become the norm for a while, it was another wildly volatile day for the markets. Tariff declarations sent stocks tumbling at the open of trading, but a pause with Mexico helped turn a sizable downturn into a small gain by early...

Friends   Similar to yesterday, stocks were doing just fine until word out of the White House was that tariffs are on (25%) for February 1st for both Canada and Mexico. Once again, the tariff talk sent stocks lower and bond yields higher. Many stocks had big...

Friends   Stocks were calmly higher for much of today’s trading session when in the last hour reports of tariffs on Canada and Mexico erased the gains and left the bulls a bit flat footed. But in the final moments stocks moved back into positive territory in some...

Friends   As expected, the Fed kept interest rates the same with the Fed Funds rate remaining at 4.25%-4.50%. Fed Chair Powell seemed to indicate that the Fed is pretty comfortable in the position that they are in and will let the data dictate where we go from...

Friends   After yesterday’s AI earthquake, things were able to settle down a bit today. Yesterday’s damaged Generals were able to recover some and the market averages were able to post gains. Remember, we get a Fed decision on interest rates tomorrow (we don't...

Friends   What a crazy way to start what was going to be a crazy week anyway. The AI world was turned upside down by DeepSeek, a Chinese startup company that boasts performance on par with Open AI’s (Chat GPT) latest models. The kicker is that DeepSeek says its...

Friends   The bulls took a breather today (might not be a bad thing) as stocks finished the week on a down note. But, in general it was a good week for stocks, and the bulls continue to hold the high ground. Next week we have the Federal Reserve coming together...