Wall Street reaches four-week highs as bond yields drop

Today was the day everyone was looking for some further hints about future rate hikes.  And though Powell and three Fed presidents offered nothing but hawkish comments and even the so-called Beige Book showed no encouragement – guess what?  Nobody cared, at least not today.  Bond yields dropped and that sent investors on a buying spree that shot stocks up to their highest one-day percentage jump in a month. The bond moves were especially beneficial to the tech sector with the Nasdaq bolting up 246 points but the Dow also did a very impressive jump of 435.  But all eyes are still very much on September 21^st when the Fed meets to announce the next widely expected hike.  Volume was a tad below average at 10.2 billion. 

Wall Street ends busy post-summer session in the red

It was another day of volatility across the board as the markets continued to be nervous about just about everything. The Dow was down some 270 points right out the gate, then zoomed back to a 100 point gain between 11 a.m. and noon only to plunge again some 400 points by 1 p.m. and stay there to close down 173. That’s a lot of seesaw action. Today’s reports showed that services had picked up for the second straight month but that industrial purchasing had fallen. The rise in services continued to fuel fears about rate hikes. 

4 Billionaires Top Stock Picks

You don't get much hotter off the presses than today, and today's edition of U.S. News Invested follows the popular investment strategy of "Follow the Money."  We're all familiar with the other kind of "Follow the Money" investing where you do the legal kind of insider trading by following the publicly available leads about what the top executives at major corporations are personally buying and selling and then doing the same.  In this case, it's follow the money of the world's most famous billionaires and what they are buying and selling.  It's all right here.  Hope everyone had an enjoyable Labor Day.  

Inflation's Powerful Impact

For the holiday weekend, Consuelo Mack devoted the WealthTrack program this week to a detailed discussion of inflation.  As the lead reads, "It's been four decades since inflation has played such a powerful role in the economy and markets."  There are a lot of reasons -- and theories -- for the inflation we have now but the supply chain crisis is the one I agree with most.  Ukraine runs a close second, the labor shortage a third. Let's see if this program agrees or points out something new.  Enjoy your holiday.  

2022's 10 Best-Performing Stocks

To start September off on the right footing - and in consideration of the historical fact that September is almost always the worst market month of the year -- I think this week's edition of U.S. News Invested with its picks of the top 10 stocks for the year would be useful.  Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend.  

Wall Street ends week on down note as jobs report gain fade

The labor report pleased everyone very much with all three indexes jumping way up, the Dow up almost 400 in the morning, as the numbers came in very close to expectations, the most pleasing part being the increase in the unemployment rate to 3.7% showing that the labor market may be starting to loosen. Then all three indexes plunged dramatically right at noon which must have been right when the Russians announced that they would not be turning the gas back on to Europe tomorrow as expected and, worse, did not know when. This of course caused concern all over Europe, particularly Germany, over where their winter energy needs would come from and renewed panic throughout the markets completely negating all the good news over employment, inflation, and rate hikes.  

S&P 500 snaps four-session losing streak with payrolls on deck

All three indexes spent almost all day deeply in the red, the Dow down some 300 points, before rebounding in the final minutes and starting a rally presumably triggered by new found optimism that Friday’s labor report would show a weakening labor market, which is what they want. Or as some other analysts have said – perhaps investors finally decided that it was time to pick up some bargains after four days of losses.  They’re both probably right and if tomorrow’s report does show a weakening market, that rally should continue big time on Friday to close out the week.