The Buzz on Business for April 5th, 2024

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President and member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, Neel Kashkari, spoke a little truth to power yesterday and sent everyone here at the Ministry of Truth scrambling to rewrite history. “The Fed might not cut interest rates at all this year if inflation remains sticky.” We love this guy!  

When he began speaking, the S&P 500 was sitting on a thirty-eight-point gain and looking at a pretty good day. Within minutes, it fell eighty-two points.

Of course, we’ve been saying for months that rate cuts were unlikely this year. Do you think Kashkari got the idea listening to the Buzz on Business?

You know, you just don’t get this kind of influential and market-moving commentary on other podcasts.

Stock Market Report

Mostly red numbers on the giant quote machine after comments from Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Kashkari on Thursday afternoon.

• The Dow Jones Industrials, which had been up over 200 points, finished the session down 530 points, or 1.4%. It is now back below 39,000, at 38,597.
• The S&P 500 closed at 5147, off sixty-four points. That's a loss of 1.2%.
• The NASDAQ Composite was down 1.4%, 228 points, and it closed at 16,049.
• The Russell 2000 was off 1.1%, 22 points, and it closed at 2,054.

Bond Market Report

Markets don't always move in perfect harmony, but that is often the case, so we were surprised that bonds rose and interest rates fell on the day.

• The yield on the 2-year treasury was off three basis points, and it closed at 4.645%.
• The 20-year was off four ticks, and it closed at 4.572%.

Oil, Gold, and Bitcoin

• Oil continued its rally. It was up $1.15, and a barrel will now set you back $86.74.
• Gold finally had a down day. It was off $4.80, and a troy ounce now changes hands at $2,310.20.
• Bitcoin broke its three-day losing streak. It was up $2645.21 and at 4:00 PM Eastern Time stood at $68,545.02.

Initial and Continuing Unemployment Claims Spike

In addition to the unexpected bit of truth-telling from the Federal Reserve, traders had to deal with an economic calendar that yielded some bad news as well. Both initial and continuing jobless claims came in above expectations. Exposing some cracks in the labor market?

The Atlanta Feds GDP Now report came in below expectations.

Do two days make a trend? We shall see later this morning. The government's jobs report rolls out. We get Average Hourly Earnings, the labor force participation rate, our favorite economic statistics, Private Non-farm payrolls, and the unemployment rate. Expectations are that unemployment held steady in March at 3.9%.

Everyone here at the Ministry of Truth will be huddled around the telescreens come 8:30. Eastern Time this morning so that we can report it all to you tomorrow here on The Buzz.