The Buzz on Business for March 11th, 2024

Stocks opened sharply lower on Monday morning but fought back throughout most of the day to finish mixed with small gains and small losses. Advancers led decliners and all of it on low volume as Wall Street, everyone here at world headquarters and the rest of the world await today's inflation numbers.

Stock Market Report

It looked like a giant Christmas tree on the Giant Quote Machine yesterday with pretty much equal numbers of red and green numbers.

• The Dow Jones Industrials managed a gain. They were up 47 points. That's a bit over one-tenth of a percent and closed at 38,770.
• The S&P 500 managed a small loss—it was off one-tenth. That's six points on the S&P, which closed at 5,118.
• The NASDAQ composite was off four-tenths of a percent, 66 points, and it closed at 16,019.
• And the Russell 2000 underperformed the rest of the market for the first time in recent memory. It was down seven-tenths—fifteen points and starts the day today at 2071.

Bond Market Report

Bonds likewise finished mixed, but rates were mostly higher on Monday.

• The 2-year treasury closed at 4.538%, up six basis points.
• The yield on the 20-year was up one tick, and it closed at 4.36%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• After being down most of the day, oil managed a small gain. That's often a bullish sign. It was up $0.30 and closed at $78.08.
• We looked at the gold chart early in the day and saw it was down, and we thought, ah ha! The streak is over. But we were wrong. Gold finished the day up $3.10 and closed at 2,189.
• Bitcoin had another good day. It was up $1627.78. At 4:00 PM Eastern Time, it stood at $70,856.68. The first time it has closed above $70,000.

CPI Data Due Out

The story Monday, the story today, the story for as far as the eye can see is inflation. This morning, at 8:30 AM Eastern Time, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will roll out the Consumer Price Index complex.

Expectations are that the CPI for February will have increased by 0.4%, and year-over-year inflation will be 3.1%. The core numbers, which exclude food and energy, aren't expected to be much better. Month-over-month core inflation is expected to be 0.3%, and year-over-year inflation is expected to be 3.7%.

Hyper-Inflation as a Policy Choice

Over the weekend, we saw a report that a group of politicians is pressuring the Federal Reserve and Chairman Jerome Powell to ignore inflation and cut interest rates before the unemployment rate spikes.

Honestly, we cannot think of anything more stupid than this. Could it be that your humble podcast host is the only one old enough to remember the last time inflation spiked in the late 1970s and early 1980s? Could we be the only ones who remember that the unemployment rate at that time got way above 10%? That's what inflation could do to an economy.

Inflation is job one. And we’re close to full employment now. What are these politicians thinking?

Oh. Yeah. Nevermind!

Oh! Nevermind!