Wall St. ends off day's highs as Fed sees inflation rising

The big correction of the last two days has momentarily begun to reverse as the Dow gained 72 points on news that the private sector added 49,000 more jobs than expected and Boeing beat its full-year profits forecast.  There is still fear of inflation from Fed statements confirming further gradual rate hikes, though this month anyway, no action was taken.  And for a second day, the healthcare sector took another big hit, this time 1.5%, which added to yesterday’s 2.1% drop makes a two-day total decline of 3.6 percent.  Yes, higher rates means more inflation and a cooling of equities but it has been the goal for a couple years now to do just that as inflation is so low and equities so hot to begin with.  Also today the forecast for Q4 earnings growth has been raised to 13.7% from 13.2 yesterday and 12 a few weeks ago.  Volume is still roaring at 8 billion. 

Wall Street stumbles as bond yields rise, health stocks fall

Yes, it’s true – when bonds go up stocks go down; but I’d say that 362 points is a bit ridiculous … except when three of the biggest powerhouse companies in history gang up to create their own healthcare system.  Investors evidently saw this as a big enough threat to conventional health insurance companies that they sold the sector something fierce, dropping it over two percent and driving the market as a whole to its second biggest one-day drop since the election.  It also incidentally shot the VIX to its highest since last August.  Will the State of the Union placate investors, or make them even more nervous?  But Q4 remains on target, the forecast remains at 13.2 percent, and volume was very strong and considerably above average at 8.1 billion. 

Dow, S&P 500 suffer worst one-day fall in five months as Apple drags

After all, there are those who feel that equities are quite overvalued so it really should be hailed as good news whenever there is a pullback such as occurred today, as they said the “worst one-day fall in five months.”  The Dow dropped 177, the others had similar percentage declines, and the VIX “anxiety” index went up 25 percent on heavy volume of 7.1 billion shares.  But really, isn’t this just letting a little air out of the tire so shouldn’t it be a source of relief for investors?  This is just the beginning of a very event-filled week.  Let’s see how it all unfolds. 

Succinct Summations of Week’s Events for 1.26.18

Sun, 1-28-18

I almost forgot about this tonight so, at this late hour, I will restrict this post to just the usual Sunday night succinct summary for the week.  Saturday night I was out until past 3 a.m. so I decided to skip this blog.  I have spent the bulk of this past week and weekend researching all my options for pursuing the CFP and so a few minutes ago I registered for the 2018-19 cohort program at Oakland University.  I had decided pretty much for sure a couple weeks ago that I was going to do my studies online instead of at OU but after reviewing the online offerings I finally decided a few days ago that the best way to find out if this is the right path for me is just to take the first class at OU which begins a week from Wednesday.  I may not make it past the first class; I may not even make it through the first class.  But the exposure should give me a much better idea of whether this is the right choice for me.  Hope everyone had a great weekend. Brace yourselves, winter is coming back. 

Intel, healthcare shares boost lift Wall St. to record

Yesterday’s very mild correction was greeted today by yet another round of strong Q4 reporting which sent all the indexes soaring again, the Dow up another 223.  We are now up to nearly one-quarter of the S&P reporting and almost 80 percent topping expectations.  Results are sufficiently positive that the forecast for earnings growth has now been raised to 13.2% up from 12.4 a few days ago.  GDP increased 2.6% annualized though that was below the 3.0% forecast.  Volume remains vigorous but just slightly below the 4-week average at just under 6.6 billion shares traded. 

Dow and S&P 500 reach records; market cools after Trump talks up dollar

Ordinarily a strong dollar is considered a good thing but, in this day and age with so many U.S. companies doing business abroad, a weak dollar has become more desirable as it helps multinational companies show bigger profits.  Whether that’s good or bad can be debated at length.  But the markets were going very strong today until Trump’s speech in Davos calling for steps to make the already very strong U.S. dollar even stronger.  The immediate reaction was a massive sell off with both the Nasdaq and S&P losing all its gains.  The Dow had been up 200 but fell 60 on the news.  Today’s experts also voice two opposing opinions – that we’re heading for a  massive and bloody correction … and that we’re not!   Volume again was quite vigorous and above average at 7.2 billion shares traded. 

S&P 500 dips after choppy session; chipmakers drag Nasdaq

In this raging bull market where all it takes is the slightest hint of bad news to make things tumble, it seems that all it took today was the hint of another war, this time a trade war with China.  It put an ever so slight dent in both the Nasdaq and S&P but the continuing solid Q4 reporting was enough to push the Dow up another 41 as Trump prepares to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  The indexes keep trending higher and, according to today’s expert, a meaningful pullback is not likely as investors don’t want to miss out.  So far just under 20% of the S&P has reported and almost 80% have topped forecasts.  Trading continues to be rigorous and above average at 7.6 billion.