Friends

Trading was choppy to start the week, but in the end the bulls were able to scratch out modest gains in the market averages. It’s a big week for corporate earnings as we’ll hear from the likes of Coca-Cola, Master Card, Prudential, Amgen, Lilly, McDonalds, Chevron, Exxon, Berkshire Hathaway, and tech giants, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon. So far almost 3 out of 4 companies that have reported this earnings season have beaten analysts’ estimates. In addition, we’ll get the all-important jobs report on Friday.

As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 114 points to finish the day at 40,227. The S&P 500 was up 3 points to close at 5,528. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 16 points to close at 17,366. Gold was up $62 to trade at $3,360 per ounce, while oil was down $1.04 to trade at $61.98 per barrel WTI.

It is likely to be another volatile week given what’s on the calendar and the fact that we could hear things on trade deals at any moment-both positive and negative. Stay tuned, we’ll let you know how the week plays out.

Have a nice evening everyone.

Jim