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Stocks gained back some of Monday's losses on Tuesday despite the eerie sound of that rubber band stretching in the S&P 500, but as of now the market keeps climbing the wall of worry despite some signs that a pullback is needed, or at least due. Small caps led yesterday as yields eased lower after the two-day rally triggered by Friday's strong jobs report, and that also helped the F-fund rebound. The dollar was also down helping the I-fund to decent day as well.

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The new week started with some profit taking after Friday's big rally in the large caps, while small caps (S-fund), the I-fund, and bonds (F-fund) tacked onto Friday's losses. The Dow was down sharply and it gave back all of Friday's gains, and then some while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each gave back a small percentage of Friday's move higher. Bonds were down sharply as yields moved sharply higher for a second day following the unusually strong jobs report.

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Strong earnings out of the Magnificent 7, and a much stronger than expected jobs report, gave us a very mixed day in the TSP funds on Friday. The S&P 500 (C-fund) is heavily weighted in big tech stocks and it benefited, along with the Dow, and of course the Nasdaq, with those Mag 7 earnings on Friday. But the unusually strong jobs report sent yields and the dollar up sharply, and that put a lot pressure on small caps (S-fund), the I-fund, and bonds (F-fund) on Friday.

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The opportunity of the week was to buy the C-fund on Wednesday. The C and S-fund pulled back sharply on Wednesday after the Federal Open Markets Committee took stage to deviate from investors' expectations of the Fed Fund rate path. The market has been pricing in a rate cut in the March meeting for some time, but the Fed and their chairman Jerome Powell are not so sure they want to pull the trigger so soon. The probability of a rate cut in March dropped sharply after the FOMC policy ...

The stock market bounced back from Wednesday's post-Fed sell-off, recapturing a large majority of the losses. If that wasn't enough, Amazon and Meta reported after the bell and were each up big in after hours trading. Apple also reported and it was trading down some but the over all equity futures were up a health amount on Thursday evening. If that holds it will be on top of the 1% gains we saw across the board yesterday. Bonds were up as yields fell sharply again.

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