The Buzz on Business for February 27th, 2024

While they await, with bated breath, the inflation numbers due out tomorrow morning, stocks have lost some of the momentum we’d seen after the NVIDIA earnings announcement last week. As a result, we’ve developed a new theory of the markets. It’s called “Conservation of Momentum.” Because you know who found all that momentum that stocks have lost? Bitcoin!

Stock Market Report

Not a good day but not a bad day for stocks on Tuesday. Advancers led decliners on decent volume. Mostly green numbers on the Giant Quote Machine here at World Headquarters, but the excitement meter was stuck on zero pretty much all day.

• The Dow Jones Industrials gave up ninety-seven points, about a quarter of one percent, and closed at 38,972.
• The S&P 500, on the other hand, gained about two-tenths and closed at 5078, up nine points.
• The NASDAQ Composite was up four-tenths, fifty-nine points, and it closed, back above 16,000 at 16,035
• The Small Cap Russell 2000 was up one-tenth and closed at 2,057

Bond Market Report

Rates were likewise mixed on Tuesday.

• The 2-year treasury closed at 4.697% off three basis points.
• The yield on the 20-year was up three ticks, and it closed at 4.561%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil was up $0.92 and closed at $78.46.
• Gold was up $5.20, and a troy ounce now changes hands at $2044.10.
• Bitcoin is on a roll! It had another great day; as of 4 pm ET, it stood at $56,696.85, that’s up $2,059.36 or almost 4%

Free Investing Course Announced

One of our goals when we started Financial Animal and the Buzz on Business was to offer courses on financial and investment topics that encourage and empower people to do their own financial planning and investment management. Our plan has been to offer some of those courses for a fee. (We’re thinking of about $100,000 a course but it might be higher!!!) And to offer some of them for a more modest fee or for free.

So, we’re pleased to announce our first course, Mutual Fund Buyers Guide. While any number of things can and probably will go wrong, we expect it to be available on March 25^th. It will be a video course with course materials that include a spreadsheet.

Oh, and it will be free.

So, it makes a perfect gift.

We’ll have more to say about it between now and the release date, but everyone here at the Ministry of Truth hopes you’ll take a look at it and the other courses we expect to release in 2024.

Earnings News on Tap

Seventeen companies reported earnings on Tuesday. Six red numbers—more than we like to see. There seemed to be some buzz around Lowes, and it handily beat expectations for both the top and bottom lines.

Today, we get Salesforce and Paramount Global. Paramount is the former CBS/Viacom. Formerly the highest of highflyers, Paramount has gotten crushed in the last three years. If you bought the stock for over $100 in March of 2021, you were wrong. It closed yesterday at $11.25. CBS!!

Things are so bad it was thought that Paramount was a likely takeover target, probably from Warner Brothers/Discovery, but those talks were called off yesterday, probably due, at least in part, to the anti-merger views that hold sway in Washington, DC these days.

We’ll have to see if, with its earnings report today, Paramount can start to find its footing. CBS at $11?? Yikes!!

Economic Data Due Out Today But Markets Await the PCE

Gross Domestic Product for the 4^th quarter is due out this morning. Inflation numbers tomorrow.

You don’t have any choice, do you? You have got to keep it right here!