The Buzz on Business for March 19th 2024

Inflation? What you talking about all this inflation? We ain’t got no inflation ‘round here.

Stock Market Report

Stocks gapped up at the open before trading sideways most of the day and selling off into the close to finish mixed on the day.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 38,790 up 76 points. That’s two-tenths of a percent.
• The S&P 500 was up 32 points, or six-tenths of a percent, to 5,149.
• The NASDAQ Composite had a pretty good day. It was up eight-tenths of a percent. That’s 130 points, and it closed back above 16,000 at 16,103.
• The Russell 2000 was off on the day. It closed at 2,027, down fourteen points or seven-tenths of one percent.

Bond Market Report

Rates were up on Monday but not by much.

• The 2-year treasury closed at 4.734%, up less than a tick.
• The yield on the 20-year was up one basis point, and it closed at 4.565%

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil was up $1.17 and closed at $82.14. That’s the highest price we’ve seen since early November.
• Gold was up $2.80, and a troy ounce will now set you back $2,164.30.
• Bitcoin gave back some of its recent gains. It was off $2,049.68 and, at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, stood at $66,983.71

Nothing to report on either the earnings or economic calendars for Monday. Today, we will get some housing data, which will be interesting, but all eyes will be on the Federal Reserve, which will begin two days of meetings later this morning culminating in their announcement tomorrow after the close.

A lot has happened since the last Fed meeting. Specifically, a spike, a persistent spike In the inflation numbers. And the market’s apparent policy of ignoring them. We’ve also seen weakness in some of the economic numbers, labor, retail, housing, over the last month or so. The economy is not collapsing, but it hasn’t been all that strong to begin with. And weakness often leads to more weakness.

The Fed's challenge is to fight inflation while keeping the economy from sliding into recession. That tightrope has gotten even tighter in the last 14 days.

Everyone here at the Ministry of Truth will be going through the Fed’s statement and the market’s reaction to it over the next couple of days with a fine-toothed comb. All you need to do—and what you must do—is keep it right here.