Friends

It’s a little odd to say that stocks had a kind of decent day when I tell you that the Dow ended down 478 points for the trading session. But things were better for the bulls by the close than they were midday when the Dow was down more than 700 points. The messaging out of The White House is that moving from a public spending economy to a private spending economy is going to be challenging in the short term, and that market participants are not the priority at this time. This is a much different approach than we saw during the President’s first term where he often measured his success by how the stock market was doing. So, market participants using the Trump 1.0 playbook have been caught off guard as the President is attempting to deliver a much bigger policy agenda, one that by its very definition could/will cause short term pain, especially for investors. Now, of course, things can change quickly and thus I would expect big rallies to occur in coming weeks. But the pressure in the short term is to the downside and it appears that the bears finally occupy the high ground.

As for today, by the close the aforementioned Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 478 points to finish the day at 41,433. The S&P 500 was down 42 points to close at 5,572. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 32 to close at 17,436, after being higher for much of trading session. Gold was up $27 to trade at $2,926 per ounce, while oil was up $.50 to trade at $66.53 per barrel WTI.

We will get a look at the CPI number tomorrow, but I’m not sure that carries as much weight as it has in recent months. As opposed to inflation it appears that market participants are more concerned about recession. Remain buckled in your seats and we’ll let you know how the week continues to play out.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Jim