Daily Market Commentary

Stocks battled back from a weak open once again on Wednesday and, if you like watching paint dry, this is the market for you. There's an old adage that you shouldn't short (bet against) a dull market so the bulls seem to be in control. The Dow lost 80-points on the day while the other indices were mostly flat. Bond yields rallied pushing the F-fund down again, and the dollar was up putting pressure on the I-fund.

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Stocks were mostly flat on Tuesday with the Dow shedding 11-points. The S&P 500 was up slightly and the S-fund lagged as the regional banks took down the small cap indices again. Bonds were up slightly although yields were mixed. The battle between inflation and a potentially weakening economy is what the market and the Fed are facing two weeks before the next FOMC meeting and interest rate hike is scheduled.

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Bond yields spiked higher as inflation concerns were back, but the recently beaten down bank stocks actually benefit from higher yields so the financials rallied lifting the market, and particularly the regional banks in the small cap indices. The Dow gained 101-points and as you can see in these charts below, all of those gains came in the final hour of trading as once again we see late buying from the bulls. The F-fund was down because of those higher yields, and the dollar rallied sharply making ...

Stocks were down on Friday despite an initial rally at the open following the release of some key bank earnings. The bears took over, that is until later in the day when we saw something that has become a pattern recently, which is buying into the final hour of trading. The bulls couldn't quite get the indices back into the green but the losses in the major indices were well off those morning lows. Bonds were down as yields and the dollar rallied.

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A normally uninteresting Producer Price Index report came out yesterday, and not only was it better than expected, but it was down sharply where estimates were for higher prices (-0.5% actual vs. +0.01% est.) This got the bulls' attention and perhaps some capitulation from some stubborn bears and we got a strong rally off that data which, unlike the CPI report on Wednesday, held into the close. The Dow gained 384-points and we saw a gain of 1% to 2% through most of the indices, although the economically ...