Wall St dips to lower close as rate hike bets firm, banks jump

This is why investing is so much fun. When I first saw today’s diving market numbers, I assumed the long-awaited bank reports did not have good news.  But quite the contrary, the big three banks beat expectations and further data showed industrial production and capacity utilization came in strong. So what’s the bad news? Well, the markets see it as confirming that the financial sector was not adversely impacted by recent bank failures and that showed vibrancy and resiliency.  

Wall St rallies to higher close as inflation data feeds Fed pause hopes

Today’s PPI report came in with an emphatic demonstration that inflation was coming down, the graph below showing it now well below the 4% mark, getting considerably closer to the Fed’s 2% goal.  This of course heightened encouragement that the Fed may soon be pausing rate hikes, which caused all the indexes to rally big time, the Dow up 383 points.  Q1 reporting coming Friday from the big banks will provide a clearer picture of how the financial sector is faring vs the recent crisis.  Volume remains below average at 10.4 billion and will like stay below average until a much better Q1 picture emerges. 

Wall Street closes lower after Fed minutes, inflation data

The indexes seesawed between black and red all day, the Dow up some 200 points by 2 pm. Then, right at 2 pm, the whole market went south with everything closing in the red.  It must have been right at 2 pm that the Fed issued its minutes stating concerns about regional bank liquidity and, despite a CPI report showing inflation cooling, there was still considerable anxiety in those last two hours.  

Wall St ends mixed as inflation data comes into focus

The Dow and S&P started the day at Ground Zero and rose steadily, the Dow gaining about 200 points. The Nasdaq too started at zero, and then fell precipitously until about noon when it too began a steady recovery almost to break-even.  Then, about 3:30, all three dropped like a rock, the Dow still hanging on to about half of its gain but the other two closing in the red, the Nasdaq deeply.  The surge was attributed to a consensus that inflation worries are overblown, especially on the heels of Chicago Fed prez warning the Fed not to raise rates again. Also, cyclicals doing well is taken as a healthy sign against recession.  

Wall Street ends mixed with inflation data, earnings on tap

All three indexes started the day deeply in the red, the Dow down 140 points, all on the heels of Friday’s employment report that now has the odds of a ¼ point rate hike increased dramatically to 72% and with it the increased ugly specter of recession.  However, the entire day after open was spent in recovery with the Nasdaq and S&P reaching break-even by close and the Dow gaining 101 points. With more inflation reports due later this week, perhaps investors decided the doom and gloom was premature. Or, as today’s expert put it, “There’s clearly a disconnect between what the Fed is telling us they’re going to do and what the market believes the Fed is going to do.”  This despite the fact that the Fed has a long history of doing what they say.  

Retirement Blind Spots

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