Buzz on Business for Thursday, January 11th, 2023

At long last and after fighting it tooth and nail for years and years, the federal agency responsible for regulating the financial markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission, finally green-lighted several exchange-traded funds that will invest in Bitcoin. To those of us here at the Ministry of Truth, this feels like, ya know, progress.

This approval came, interestingly enough, on the very day that the SEC’s Twitter account was hacked, which doesn’t.

Bitcoin yawned on the news. It was up eight-tenths of a percent and closed at 46,069.

Stock Market Report

It was a good day for the indexes on Wednesday, although there seems to be a bit of a wait-and-see attitude pouring out of the Giant Quote Machine. Maybe it’s just us.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up a stout 171 points. That’s five-tenths of a percent, and they closed at 37,696.
• The Standard and Poor’s 500 was up 27 points. That’s six-tenths, and they closed at 4,783.
• The tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite had a good day. It was up eight-tenths, that’s 112 points and it closed at 14,970. Closing in on the 15,000 level, once again.
• The RSP, the S&P 500 equal weight index, was up almost two-tenths of a percent. The SOXL, the Semiconductor Index with three-to-one leverage, was down 9/10 of a percent.

Bond Markets

Bonds were mixed, but interestingly enough, yields at the shorter end of the curve were down, while longer-term rates were up. It does appear that the yield curve is trying to straighten itself out.

• The 2-year treasury closed with a yield of 4.36%, that’s off a little more than one tick.
• The 20-year treasury closed at 4.347%, up two basis points.

Oil and Gold

• Oil was off $0.89 and closed at $71.25 a barrel.
• Gold was off $5.20. And a troy ounce will now set you back $2027.80.

Potentially Market Moving Economic Data on Tap

Finally, we get some economic data to sink our teeth into later this morning.

Initial and continuous jobless claims are due at 8:30 AM ET.

• Economists are expecting 210,000 New Claims for Unemployment Insurance versus 202,000 last month.
• The expectation for continuing claims is 1,870,000 versus 1,855,000 last month.

The labor market has been strong. We’ll have to see if that continues.

What the market is really waiting for is the inflation data.

• CPI for December is expected to come in at 0.2%, versus 0.1% last month.
• That would bring the year-over-year number to 3.2%.
• Core CPI, which, of course, excludes volatile food and energy, is expected to come in at 0.3%, exactly where it stood last month.
• That would take the year-over-year number to 3.8%.

Inflation is still way too high and well above the Fed’s targets, yet the market is primed. It expects both lower inflation and rate cuts. And we know Wall Street is an expectations game. We will paw through all the tea leaves and serve it all up to you with milk, sugar, and crumpets, right here, tomorrow.