The Buzz on Business for February 7th, 2024

On Monday, stocks were down, not a whole lot, but it was a down day. Interestingly, the semiconductors were up. Yesterday, stocks were up, not a whole lot, but hey! A win is a win! Interestingly, the semiconductor sector was down.

Obviously, this is a market searching for direction.

Rate cuts have been taken off the table for the intermediate term. Earnings have been good, at least, versus expectations. But expectations have been lowered over the last three months or so. And there just hasn't been a lot of economic news in the last couple of days.

Everyone here at the Ministry of Truth is working overtime to figure out: What is the next catalyst? And will it send markets up or down?

Stock Market Report

• The Dow Jones industrials were up 141 points. Not too bad. That's four-tenths of a percent. They closed at 38,521.
• The S&P 500 was up 11 1/2 points. That's two-tenths of a percent. And they closed at 4,954.
• The NASDAQ Composite was up a minuscule 11 points. It closed at 15,609.
• The small-cap Russell 2000 had a pretty good day. It was up one full percentage point. That's 18 1/2 points and closed at 1,953.
• The RSP was up six-tenths of a percent and the SOXL was down 3.6% on the session.

Bond Market Report

Bonds were mixed mostly to the upside.

• The 2-year treasury closed at 4.401%. That's off 7 basis points.
• The yield on the 20-year was off six ticks, and it closed at 4.392%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil was up $0.67 a barrel. It closed at $73.41.
• Gold was also up. It closed at $2,052, up $9.
• And Bitcoin also had a pretty good day. It was up $551 and closed at $43,217.00 on the session.

Economic and Earnings Cupboard is Bare

This is one of those weeks that a news-oriented podcaster just hates. There's no news on either the earnings or economic calendars that's likely to move the markets, or that’s even interesting! Ford issued blowout earnings before the bell today, but does anybody really care about Ford? The market sure doesn't. It gave a big ho-hum when the numbers came out before the opening bell.

Disney reports later today. It's been under some pressure lately. The numbers might be interesting. The Street is expecting. $0.99 a share on $23.75 billion in sales. We’ll see. We also get numbers from Uber, CVS, PayPal, and a bunch of other companies. Again, none are likely to move the market.

The economic calendar is likewise dead. There's nothing to report from Tuesday. And today, I mean, is anyone interested in the Trade Balance for December? Ah.

Tomorrow we do get initial and continuing jobless claims. That might add some fireworks, especially given the strength of the labor market over the last several months and especially last week. But beyond that, there is nothing to report. Nothing else on Thursday, nothing at all to report on Friday. Sigh.