Equities end flat but Dow ekes out record in strong week

Equities end flat but Dow ekes out record in strong week

By Chuck Mikolajczak

Fri September 20, 2024 4:04 PM

After yesterday’s huge rally following the historic big ½ point rate cut, today the ¼ point folks took over thinking the big cut too risky at this time and all the indexes started the day well into the red. The Dow was down over 150 points in the morning with the Nasdaq and S&P suffering even deeper percentage losses and never recovering. This seemed to come on the heels of Fed Governor Bowman saying that a ¼ point would have been preferred as the market continues to recalibrate. But then fellow Governor Waller stated the opposing position that not only was the ½ point appropriate but that there could be another ½ point in November.

That started a significant if choppy comeback with the Dow in the black by 12:30 and closing modestly 38 points up, nudging it to another record. The two tech indexes also had substantial recoveries but still closed modestly in the red. Overall, mostly thanks to buying at the very end of the session, the markets ended more or less flat. But weekly gains were over 1%, the Dow 1.62%, the Nasdaq 1.49, the S&P 1.36%.  Today, the odds of another ½ point cut in November stand at 50/50. Today was also another “triple witching” event when options and futures contracts all expire and are repurchased on the same day, causing volume to artificially go through the roof. So, volume was way up to 19.97 billion, way over the 4-week average of 11.48, but again artificial so we wait until Monday to see what the real numbers are.  (Why can’t they net out the triple witching to give us a real number on these days?) 

DJ: 42,025.19  +522.09       NAS: 18,013.98  +440.68      S&P: 5,713.64  +95.38         9/19

DJ: 42,063.36  +38.17         NAS: 17,948.32  -65.66         S&P: 5,702.55  -11.09          9/20

Fri 9-20-24 4:04 pm Equities end flat but Dow ekes out record in strong week | Reuters