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The power of the Federal Reserve. After a three month rally that started in late October during earnings season and an FOMC meeting on November 1st, the Fed flipped the switch and may have ended that rally. Either that or it was an excuse for a little profit taking. The losses were steep as saw 1% to more than 2% losses in many of the indices. Interestingly, yields were down as Powell was happy with the progress of fighting inflation, but the dollar rallied late to turn an early loss into a ...

The Dow was up triple digits yesterday, the Nasdaq was down triple digits, the S&P 500 was flat, and small caps were down sharply. What a mess in front of today - one of the busiest days of the year for stocks. Bonds were up with yields falling lower, the dollar was down after a choppy day. It was just a lot of pushing and pulling after Monday's big rally, but here comes some data that may help give some clarity as earnings were released after the bell yesterday, and of course the Fed delivers ...

The new week starts out with new highs in the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq, and small caps came along for the ride leading on the upside. Trading volume was on the light side as we get closer to this week's major earnings announcements and the Fed's decision on interest rates. Bonds did well as yields slipped lower, and the dollar was up holding the I-fund back a bit.

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Friday was another choppy day for stocks after a week of favorable economic data as far as inflation and economic growth go. Inflation seems to be well under control, yet the economy is growing much more than most expected. It feels as if it has been a good month for stocks, but only the C-fund is up in January so it has been concentrated strength and the question is whether that will spill over into the smaller, broader indices, or are those small caps the ones that are telling the true story? ...

TSP investors holding the S-fund over last weekend were welcomed Monday with a 1.53% gain. This was a grand outperformance against the other TSP funds for Monday, but investors who held the S-fund through the rest of the week were left with a weekly gain of only 1.21%. The I-fund ended up with the best weekly performance with a 1.62% return.




In retrospect, it seems the best possible ...