Friends
Stocks continue to struggle in August as rallies are continuously met with selling pressure. Today’s Fed minutes pretty much confused everyone. On one hand the Fed is concerned that inflation is possibly reigniting some, but they are also concerned about the cumulative impact of all the rate hikes they have already imposed. It appears that one more rate hike this year might be getting more priced in, but we will see.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 180 points to finish the day at 34,765. The S&P 500 was down 33 points to close at 4,404. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 156 points to close at 13,474. Gold was down $12 to trade at $1,922 per ounce, while oil was down $1.80 to trade at $79.19 per barrel WTI.
Target and TJX both reported earnings after the close yesterday and they were mixed. TJX pretty much beat on all metrics, while Target continues to struggle. Ironically, Target shares moved higher anyway as did the shares of TJX. Tomorrow we will hear from Walmart. They seem to have played the last 12-18 months better than Target. We’ll let you know what they have to say and how the market reacts tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
