Once again, a barrel of crude oil, the international standard, fell 4.6% to $77.18 for its first loss in a week and a half. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude, meanwhile, eased 4.6% to $73.57.  

That also helped level off the pressure on the stock market from the bond market. Treasury yields eased a bit, a day after they shot to their highest levels since the summer.

After a solid month of September, the first higher one in five years that ended last Monday, things got hit by the old “High tech is High wreck” syndrome unfortunately making its presence felt again yesterday.

As a result, the Dow took the worst of the hit with a large 398 point decline down to 41,954 led by large selling in AAPL, CRM, MCD, MSFT, TRV and UNLV. The S&P got clobbered for 55 down to 5695 and it was hurt by some huge shellacking in AAPL, AMZN, MSFT, NFLX and META which had made an all-time high on Friday. The Nasdaq also got destroyed with a large 214 point collapse to 17,924 led by the likes of the ones just mentioned plus recently pathetic TSLA ahead of its widely anticipated robotaxi from this company on Wednesday and we shall see how this one goes. The Russell 2000 Index of small stocks also did poorly with a 19 point drop to 2193 and the VIX shot back up to 22.64 on a combination of Middle East concerns and the overall shellacking that the market took.

After a poorly-timed late selloff in the Dow and U.S. on Thursday, the market eventually made a strong upside recovery after the surprisingly strong September jobs report on Friday morning.‍

As a result, the Dow made a very strong gain of 341 up to 42,352 led by gains in some financials like AXP, GS, JPM in addition to CAT and CRM.

The S&P skyrocketed upward by 51 to 5751 led by those large financials and some strong high-tech leaders such as META at a new high plus AMZN and TSLA which were mainly lower for most of the week.

The Nasdaq surged ahead by 219 up to 18,137 upward led by those large technology issues while even the lagging Russell 2000 Index of small stocks leapt by 32 up to 2212.

Crude prices jumped Thursday on worries that increasing tensions in the Middle East could disrupt the global flow of oil, while U.S. stocks pulled back further from their records.

The Dow was the worst performer fell the most by 185 down to 42,011 led by weakness in GS, BA and CAT. The S&P, which tried to get nominally positive a few times during the session, ended lower by 10 down to 5700 as AAPL, MSFT did poorly while NVDA finally caught a nice upside bid and META reached a new all-time high but those recently hot Chinese stocks fell back as I said they would.

The Nasdaq did the “best” of all with a very nominal decline of 6 to 17,918 due to strength in NVDA and META while the Russell 2000 Index of small stocks was lower again by 15 to 2180 and the VIX went higher up to 20.49 on those Mideast tensions.

After two lower days to start the fourth-quarter, the market narrowly reversed direction yesterday to end a little higher, and Treasury yields rose following an encouraging update on the job market’s strength.  

The Dow finished 39 points higher to 42,196 led by gains in CRM and UNH of the larger variety in addition to AXP and HD. The S&P rose by 1 to 5709 with some technology advances such as NVDA and those ongoing Chinese stock advances. The Nasdaq rose by 15 to 17,925 on NVDA, ADBE, AVGO and the Chinese issues like BIDU while the Russell 2000 ended 2 points lower to 2195. And the VIX actually ended down to 18.90 despite all of the Middle Eastern hand-wringing.  

Oil prices rose again as the world waits to see how Israel will respond to Tuesday’s missile attack from Iran, but they pared their gains as the day progressed. After briefly topping $76 earlier, the price for a barrel of Brent crude settled at $73.90, up 0.5%.  

After a third-quarter which showed the Dow and S&P at all-time highs, the market went into a bad retreat to start the first day of the fourth-quart yesterday, and it looks like things can remain choppily bouncing around until this Friday’s September jobs report and then the start of the third-quart earnings season later in this month.

Equities retreated from their records Tuesday after missiles were fired from Iran into Israel, a sharp escalation of tensions in the Middle East that investors fear could lead to disruptions in the flow of oil.

The market ended higher after a choppy day on either side of unchanged and this followed a start to the week for financial markets in Asia, where Japanese stocks tumbled and Chinese indexes soared and this pattern continued what we saw for the past couple of weeks.

The Dow was able to sneak out a minor victory of 17 points to a new record high of 42,330 led by a strong gain in AAPL, plus HD, MSFT and UNH after being down by as much as 384 during the press briefing with Fed Chairman Jay Powell. The S&P advanced by 24 to 5762 led by those large technology gains plus some of the others mentioned above and it set its 43rd new high this year with its fifth straight winning month and fourth straight winning quarter.

For more than a year, the Fed had kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the economy enough to drive inflation toward its 2% target. Now that inflation has eased substantially from its peak two summers ago, the Fed has begun to lower rates to ease conditions for the slowing job market and prevent a recession.

Of course, the risk of a downturn still looms. U.S. employers have slowed their hiring, and the inflation report on Friday also showed growth in U.S. consumer spending in August fell shy of economists’ expectations. That is important because consumer spending is the main engine of the economy.

The Fed on Wednesday lowered its benchmark rate by 0.50 percentage points. Click to see the full video announcement.

After last week’s disastrous start to the sometimes tricky month of September, which was historical in some sense as mentioned in yesterday’s Notes, the market tried to redeem itself on Monday to claw back some of the losses from their worst week in nearly a year and a half.  

The Dow rallied by 484 to 40,829 led by gains in the financial components while the S&P took an upside moonshot of 62 to 5471 with strength in the beaten-down former financial leaders plus nice gains in the financials.

Another rout hit the market to end a historic lower week, with formerly high-flying technology stocks again taking the brunt, after the August jobs report came in weak enough to add worries about the economy.

The S&P 500 dropped by an awful 95 points to end at 5498 which was its worst week since March 2023. BRCM, NVDA and other tech companies drove the market lower amid ongoing concerns that their prices soared too high in the boom around artificial intelligence, and they dragged the Nasdaq composite down by a market-leading 2.6%.

The Nasdaq made a weak late rally to end 43 points higher as NVDA had the nerve to end around 1 dollar higher after getting blasted lower for the first two days of the week. And how about AAPL and AAPL finally going higher for a change and even GOOG had the nerve to gain, which is somewhat of a miracle with all of the talk about potential antitrust charge against it. And TSLA, of all things, has finally awoken higher this week as well.  

The S&P was down by 24 at the same time and also improved from that level to cut its closing loss to 9 at 5520. Once again, some of the former large technology leaders such as AAPL, which has done really poorly this week, along with NVDA and MSFT, the three largest stocks in the index, were all lower along with the energy group as oil prices fell under $70 after all of the “experts” were saying that the price would be much higher due to the old “major geopolitical risks” situation.

The S&P was a complete downside disaster with a huge 119 points lower to 5529 hurt by one of the worst days for technology in a long time, plus weakness in the financial sector as well. U.S. stocks tumbled Tuesday to their worst day since an early August sell-off, as a week full of updates on the economy got off to a discouragingly weak start.  

The obsessively-watched NVDA, which traded 440 million shares, which has ridden the frenzy over artificial intelligence to become one of the S&P’s most influential companies, was the biggest weight on the market. Its shares fell 6.4% despite stellar results for the second-quarter. The stock, with a total market value topping $3 trillion, is still up 138% in 2024.

The market’s pullback ahead of NVDA’s quarterly results may have been partly due to news about another company tied to AI, namely SCMI.  

The recent upside motivation was the speech by Fed Chairman Powell that interest rates are finally coming down at the September 18th meeting and then there are questions about the health of the consumer and to whether the stock valuations for big tech growth companies like NVDA have become overblown relative to companies’ prospects for future growth. This report will be the elephant in the room for the market.

The market got some positive economic data to mull over Tuesday as the August Consumer Confidence report rose to 103.3 which was the highest since February. Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity. That has been a strong area of the economy, along with the jobs market.

Monday started off with a surprisingly good report showing that durable goods orders from U.S. factories, including cars, jumped by 9.9% in July. An update on consumer confidence is on tap for today and there will be a revised estimate on Thursday of economic growth during the second quarter.

The key report for investors this week will come on Friday, when the government serves up its latest data on inflation with the PCE, or personal consumption and expenditures report, for July. It is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation.

Powell’s speech marked a sharp turnaround for the Fed after it began hiking rates two years ago as inflation spiraled to its worst levels in generations. The Fed’s goal was to make it so expensive for U.S. households and companies to borrow that it slowed the economy and helped bring down inflation.

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