Friends

United Health and Apple put a lot of negative pressure on the Dow and the S&P, but overall stocks were mostly quiet throughout the trading session. Big bank earnings have been really good to start off earnings season, but I think what stocks are going to struggle with over the coming weeks is valuation, not company results. We might see a lot of good earnings news but less than stellar share price reactions. At least that is how it feels at the moment. We’ll see how the next few weeks play out.

As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 68 points to finish the day at 43,153. The S&P 500 was down 12 points to close at 5,937. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 172 points to close at 19,338. Gold was up $30 to trade at $2,748 per ounce, while oil was down $1.34 to trade at $78.70 per barrel WTI.

Bonds yields fell for a second day in a row, which is a counter trend rally for bond prices stoked by tame inflation data earlier this week. It will be interesting to see if the rally in bonds continues for more than a day or two. In the meantime, let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Jim