Buzz on Business for Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Do you remember last week when we went on at some length, as we do from time to time, about a correction? A retracement? How the S&P might fall to 4500?

We were wrong!

Stock Market Report

Two Fed officials spoke and attempted to pour cold water on the notion of any near-term rate cuts. Market’s shrugged it off.

• The Dow Jones Industrials were up 217 points, six-tenths of a percent, and closed at 37,683
• The S&P 500 was up 1.4%, sixty-six points, and closed at 4,764.
• The Nasdaq Composite rallied 2.2%. It closed at 14,844, up 320 points.
• The RSP – the S&P 500 Equal Weight Fund was up 1.07%
• The SOXL, That’s the Semiconductor Index with three-to-one leverage was up9.64%

Bond Markets

Rates fell—a surprise given the comments from the Fed—but not by much.

• The two-year Treasury closed, yielding 4.377%, off almost one basis point.
• The yield on the twenty-year closed at 4.336%, off two ticks.

Oil and Gold

• Oil sold off pretty hard. I guess our theory about a mini-rally was wrong! It closed at $70.84, off $3.06
• Gold was down $16.30 and will now set you back $2.033.50 a troy ounce

NVIDIA Lifts Markets Despite Boeing’s Woes
No economic news to explain the market rally yesterday. None today either, and not much this week, although the inflation complex rolls out on Thursday and Friday. We’ll be watching carefully.

Chip giant and Magnificent Seven member NVIDIA announced a batch of new products, most of which relate to, you guessed it, Artificial Intelligence. The stock went to the moon. Or maybe it went to Mars; it’s been to the moon already.

NVIDIA was up 6.43% yesterday. Not a bad year.

The Dow Industrials were held back by Boeing, which fell on the grounding of much of its 737 Max fleet as a result of the mid-air incident that occurred over the weekend. Boeing was off over 8% on the news.

A confluence of factors drove an upbeat performance in the stock market on Tuesday, defying expectations set by Fed pronouncements and economic data. Technology giant NVIDIA's surge on new AI product releases was the star of the show, while Boeing's woes stemming from the 737 Max grounding cast a shadow on the Dow Jones. With inflation data due later this week, we will be watching closely for further clues about the market's trajectory.