Daily Market Commentary

It was an uneventful start to the new month as stocks traded in a fairly tight range while closing near the lows of that range. The losses were minor despite the news that failing First Republic Bank being bought by JP Morgan Chase. The Dow gave up 46-points, the S&P 500 was flat, and only the S-fund managed a slight gain on the day. Yields were up sharply sending bond prices and the F-fund down, and the I-fund lagged because of strength in the dollar.

...

Despite Amazon falling 4% after their earnings, the market and the bulls were in a good mood in the final trading day of the month on Friday. The Dow jumped 272-points ending a mixed month for stocks. Earnings have been fairly good from the companies that matter most and that higher tide seems to have lifted all boats last week. Stocks seem to want to go higher, but now we head into a new month and sometimes a new month can mean a new direction. Will it be a year that lives up to the saying, ...

Investors took Wednesday's reported earnings from META (aka Facebook) on top of Tuesday's reports from Microsoft and Google (aka Alphabet) and ran out of reasons to be bearish. When you run out of sellers you get rallies. Reminder that JP Morgan said 95% of its investors believed stocks would fall this year. That's not what all sentiment surveys are saying, but it suggested there was plenty of cash available to see some buying, and FANG / MAGA is giving them a reason to buy. Now, we have to ...

Stocks got off to a good start on Wednesday following the strong earnings reports from Microsoft and Google, but after recovering some of Tuesday's losses, the indices flipped over. The Nasdaq did hold onto a solid gain because of those tech earnings, but the broader indices were down, particularly the Transports, for a second straight day. Yields were up (bond prices down) and the dollar was down.

...

Stocks sold off on Tuesday with financial stocks breaking some charts below key support levels. The Dow lost 345-points and the selling was broad as we saw 5 decliners for every advancers on the NYSE, with 7 times more declining share volume than advancing. Earnings after the bell did bring some after hours buying in, which could be a boost today, but it could remain choppy out there if the next wave of big earnings isn't as good as Tuesday's release. Hundreds of companies will be reporting this ...