The Buzz on Business for March 8th 2024

A new all-time high for the Standard and Poor's 500 index. A new all-time high for the NASDAQ Composite. But volume was down, and the labor market report is due out later this morning. If it’s too weak or too strong, well, green numbers could turn red before you can say labor force participation rate.

Stock Market Report

Yesterday saw solid gains for stocks, for bonds, for oil, for gold and for Bitcoin.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 38,791, up 130 points, or three-tenths of a percent.
• The S&P 500 was up a stout one percent, 53 points, and closed at 5,157.
• The NASDAQ composite had a really good day. It was up one and a half percent, 242 points, and closed at 16,273.
• Likewise, the Russell 2000 was up seven-tenths of a percent and closed at 2,084, up 15 points.

Bond Market Report

Bonds were up, and interest rates were mostly lower across the yield curve on Thursday.

• The yield on the 2-year treasury was off 6 basis points, and it closed at 4.503%.
• The 20-year was off about one tick and closed at 4.346%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil was up a minuscule $0.16. And a barrel now changes hands at $79.20.
• What is going on with gold? It was up another $8.00 yesterday, and a troy ounce will now set you back $2,166.30.
• Bitcoin had a small gain. Well, small for Bitcoin. It was up $569.29 and, at 4:00 PM ET, stood at $67,603.65.

Earnings, Economic Reports: Is the Labor Market Weakening?

We confess we did not watch Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell's testimony before the House of Representatives yesterday, having had our fill when he testified Wednesday before the Senate. We did check the news reports and either no one else watched it, or the more likely scenario, he said nothing newsworthy.

Five public companies reported earnings on Thursday. Five green numbers on the giant quote machine here at World Headquarters.

Costco reported fourth-quarter earnings after the bell and handily beat expectations for earnings but missed on the top line; the Street was expecting $59.11 billion in sales, and Costco reported $57.33 billion, a nearly $2 billion miss. The stock was up at the close but sold off in the overnight session.

No earnings reports are expected today. and little of consequence is due next week as earnings season starts to wind down.

But there is plenty of economic news coming out today. Any or all of it could move the markets today.

• Average hourly earnings for February are due.
• Non-farm payrolls for February.
• Our favorite economic statistic, the labor force participation rate for February.
• And the unemployment rate. Expectations are for the rate to hold steady at 3.7% for February

All are due out at 8:30 Eastern Time this morning.

It's probably too soon to see a change in trend, but it seems to us that the labor market has been softening just a bit over the last month or two. If anything could put the soft landing in jeopardy, it would be payrolls. We will be watching carefully, and we'll report it all to you on Monday morning. All you have to do is keep it here.