Friends

It was a good start to the week for stocks as word of tariff exemptions for many tech products helped fuel a broad rally across the board. We know that things can and will likely continue to change quickly in the coming days and weeks with regards to tariff headlines so it’s best just to take them as they come and not try to get ahead of ourselves. In the meantime, we head into a very interesting earnings season in the next few weeks.

As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 312 points to finish the day at 40,524. The S&P 500 was up 42 points to close at 5,405. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 107 points to close at 16,831. Gold was down $18 to trade at $3,226 per ounce, while oil was up $.16 to trade at $61.66 per barrel WTI.

I mentioned that last week was the most volatile week I have ever seen, at least since that week in October of 1987. The intra-day swings last week were 8.5% on Monday, 7.3% on Tuesday, 10.8% of Wednesday, 4.7% on Thursday, and 3.1% on Friday. Those are amazing numbers! The good news is that we hopefully peaked in volatility last Wednesday and are trending calmer. Let’s hope anyway. Ok let’s buckle up for earnings season.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Jim