Daily Market Commentary

Stocks traded in a tight range on Tuesday leading into this morning's CPI report. After a slightly negative open, the dip buyers were right there to do their thing, pushing the stock market up the wall of worry. Then, with about 30 minutes or so before the close, the gains were wiped away in the S&P 500. Perhaps because of this morning's CPI. The small caps led again and a decline in the dollar helped the I-fund push up toward its recent highs.

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The dip buyers showed up after a fairly negative morning on Monday, and they slowly but surely erased those early losses by the close. The Nasdaq was flat and the I-fund was held back by a big rally in the dollar, but other than that the bulls won Monday's battle. The initial weakness was likely caused by that tick down in the unemployment rate that was reported on Friday, and that pushed yields higher which could give the Fed another reason to be concerned about inflation and not pausing their ...

Wall Street ended a mixed week for stocks with a gain on Thursday leading into an off day on Friday where we got the March jobs report. There was a gain of 236,000 jobs, slightly less than expected, but February's report was revised slightly higher. The unemployment rate was 3.5%, a tick lower than expected so once again the labor market is holding up rather well given the economic forecasts. The Dow was flat on Thursday but the Nasdaq and S&P 500 saw decent gains. Small caps lagged a bit ...

Another day of tumbling yields as bond prices rally and investors seem to be moving more toward safety. Tech and the small caps have been lagging and did so again on Wednesday as the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 lost 1% each, while the Dow, filled with more defensive names, was up again. The dollar was up but it is still more than 9% off the fall highs.

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The bears finally showed some teeth after the bulls had pushed the indices above some key moving averages. The S&P had been up 7 of the previous 8 trading days but of course stocks don't go up everyday, even in the strongest of bull markets. It was some bearish comments from the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, plus a decline in jobs openings from the JOLTS report suggesting a possible negative turn in the jobs market, that gave investors a reason to take some profits, and only time will tell if the ...