The Buzz on Business for June 11th 2024

With all the labor market news moving stocks and bonds last week we entirely forgot that today is the start of two days of meetings of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. Everybody and their brother expects the Central Bank to leave interest rates right where they are. We had been softening our general opposition to rate cuts in recent weeks as data seemed to indicate a weakening labor market. Those fears were deferred, if not laid entirely to rest on Friday with the much stronger than anticipated Jobs Report. One data point does not a trend make, and weakness could certainly reappear, but inflation must be job one for the Fed.

The Fed meets every six weeks or so. At the conclusion of the meeting tomorrow afternoon, we’ll get the Fed’s statement and the announcement of interest rate policy, which, as we said, is expected to remain unchanged. Every other meeting, the Fed releases what’s known as the Dot Plot, where each board member anonymously predicts where interest rates will be a various points in the future. That is as newsworthy as it is typically wrong. It turns out that central bankers are little better than cable news hosts at predicting the future.

Finally, we get Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s press conference which he delivers after every meeting, and which has attracted a bit of a cult following recently. We’ll be watching. So, you don’t have to.

Stock Market Report

New all-time closing highs for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite on Monday but forgive our lack of enthusiasm. Declining stocks outpaced advancers—this kind of narrowing is often a sign that change is afoot, especially when new highs aren’t confirmed by volume which was really low on Monday.

• No new high for the Dow Jones Industrials but they still posted a two-tenths of one percent gain on the session. They closed at 38,868, up sixty-nine points.
• The S&P 500 was up fourteen points. That’s 0.25% and it closed at 5,361, a new all-time high.
• Likewise, the NASDAQ Composite. It was up fifty-nine points or four-tenths of one percent and closed at 17,193, a new all-time high.
• The small caps were up 0.25%, that’s five Russell 2000 points and they start the day today at 2,032.

Bond Market Report

Rates were mixed, mostly higher but comparatively subdued after Friday’s sharp increases.

• The yield on the 2-year treasury was up two basis points and it closed at 4.885%
• The 20-year saw its yield rise to 4.685%, that’s up five ticks.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil has rallied over the last week and now stands higher than before the OPEC meeting last week. It was up another $2.66, and a barrel now changes hands at $78.01
• Gold was up $20.60, and a troy ounce will now set you back $2,326.40
• Once again Bitcoin joined the trend. It was up $215.98 and at 4:00 PM ET stood at $69,503.22.

No Economic News Yesterday or Today. But Tomorrow. . .

Both the earnings and economic calendars were completely blank on Monday. Well, the US Treasury held a three-year note auction. Yeah, us neither.

Nothing much today either. Oracle reports earnings after the bell. Interesting, but unlikely to move the market unless it’s really bad or really good, which is unlikely.

It looks like we’re going to have to wait until tomorrow when a bunch of data rolls out including the Consumer Price Index complex and all the news out of the Fed meeting.

We’ve given everyone here at the Ministry of Truth the day off so they’re refreshed and focused by 8:30 AM ET tomorrow so we can all do what we do so that all you need to do, is keep it right here on the Buzz.