Daily Market Commentary

Stocks moved modestly higher yesterday as investors brace for the imminent interest rate hike. As you can see in the intraday index charts below, it was a choppy day in front of today's FOMC policy statement, as the indices closed well off their lows and off their highs yesterday. The Dow gained 67-points. The 10-year yield and the dollar were down, which hasn't been very common recently.

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Stocks got through a tumultuous day with a modest gain as stocks reversed to the upside and rallied into the close. The gains weren't big, but the move off the lows was. The Dow, which was down over 500-points at its lows, ended the day with a gain of 84-points. The S&P had an impressive gain of 24-points, but in comparison to Friday's 156-point loss it was just a blip on the screen. It did close more than 2% off Monday's intraday low. Bonds were down as the yield on the 10-year T-note ...

Stocks tumbled to end the week as suspect earnings from the bellwether tech companies did nothing to ease investors' minds over the current economic condition. The Dow lost 939-points on Friday with the volatile Nasdaq taking the biggest hit with a 4.2% loss. It was indiscriminate selling that tends to come toward the end of a move, but that doesn't mean the lows are in. It's just that we can expect to see some sizable counter rallies as the indices get over sold and investors get overly bearish, ...

Stocks opened modestly higher on Thursday, chopped about for a while, but just before lunch the bulls took full control and we saw explosive gains in most of the major indices. The Dow gained 614-points, and that was actually well off the high, but +1.85% nonetheless. The Nasdaq gained over 3% and the S&P picked up 2.5%. Small caps had an interesting day despite lagging a bit. There was a rare positive outside reversal day created on the chart, which is usually a very good sign. Bonds were ...

Stocks tried to move higher yesterday but twice good sized rallies faded and the indices closed much closer to the lows of the day, than the high. The Dow gained 62-points, off the nearly 400-point gain it had midday. The late selling took the Nasdaq into negative territory, and small caps also lagged. Bonds were down and there was another big rally in the dollar. Earnings are being dissected and it feels like no one knows what to expect, or how to react after they come out.

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