Daily Market Commentary

Stocks opened lower on Tuesday after some nervousness over those regional banks again. Meanwhile the back and forth in bonds, the dollar, and stocks is giving investors a headache. The Dow lost 367-points and losses were between 1% and 2% despite the indices closing off their lows of the day after some afternoon buying. Today is day #2 of the FOMC meeting and expectations are for another 0.25% interest rate hike. What isn't expected is what the Fed may say about their next move.

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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.

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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.

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