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October 7, 2024
DOW: 42,190.79
S&P: 5,731.72
Nasdaq: 18,065.36
10YR T-Note: 4.02%
Bitcoin: 63,126.5
VIX: 20.53
Gold: $2,662.50
Crude Oil: $75.87
Prices Current as of 10:46 am
Source: CNBC
Don Selkin, the creator and innovator of the "Fair Value" numbers, as its Chief Market Strategist on the Newbridge platform has given CNBC and its Predecessor, these numbers every day for the over 40 years - never missing a single day, as well as given the fair value for the Nasdaq 100 futures since their introduction in 1996 and the Dow Jones stock index futures since 1997. Mr. Selkin has also been quoted in several publications including but not limited to Bloomberg News, New York Post, Reuters, and The New York Times. Mr. Selkin's Fair Value numbers are included in the U.S.
Futures Report broadcast on CNBC every day before the market
opens attributing "Newbridge Securities" as the source. In addition, NSC provides to its professionals, their clients and the public access to Don Selkin's more in depth financial market views.
After a poorly-timed late selloff in the Dow and U.S. on Thursday, the market eventually made a strong upside recovery after the surprisingly strong September jobs report on Friday morning.
As a result, the Dow made a very strong gain of 341 up to 42,352 led by gains in some financials like AXP, GS, JPM in addition to CAT and CRM.
The S&P skyrocketed upward by 51 to 5751 led by those large financials and some strong high-tech leaders such as META at a new high plus AMZN and TSLA which were mainly lower for most of the week.
The Nasdaq surged ahead by 219 up to 18,137 upward led by those large technology issues while even the lagging Russell 2000 Index of small stocks leapt by 32 up to 2212.
All of these large gains led the VIX to finally ease back from its high over 20 down to 19.21 as it awaits further developments in the Middle East.
Leading the way were banks, airlines, cruise-ship operators and other companies whose profits can benefit the most from a stronger economy where people are working and better able to pay for things. NCLH and JPM did particularly well as a result.
They helped stock indexes claw back losses from earlier in the week, caused by worries that worsening tensions in the Middle East could lead to disruptions in the global flow of oil. Crude prices rose again Friday, but the moves were more modest than earlier in the week, as the world continued its wait to see how Israel will respond to Iran’s missile attack. In the meantime, the strength of the U.S. economy reclaimed its spot as the top mover of markets.
Treasury yields soared in the bond market after the U.S. government said employers added 254,000 more jobs to their payrolls last month than they cut. That was an acceleration from August’s hiring pace of 159,000 and blew past economists’ forecasts. In addition, the unemployment rate eased back to 4.1% And the prior two months were revised upward by another 72,000.
Average hourly income rose by 0.4% monthly and 4% year over year.
And let it be remembered that the month of September when since 1928, the results have been lower by 1.1% over time, making it the worst month of the calendar, The fourth-quarter shows that the market has risen 79% of the time during the fourth-quarter which is what we are in now.
Policy makers at the Federal Reserve, who have been trying to pull off the difficult feat of keeping the economy humming while getting inflation under control must have been made very happy with this report.
Friday’s report capped a week of mainly encouraging data on the economy, helping to allay one of the top questions: Can the job market continue to hold up after the Fed earlier kept interest rates at a two-decade high?
Before Friday’s jobs report, the general trend had been a slowdown in hiring by U.S. employers. That’s not surprising given how hard the Fed pressed the economy through higher rates in order to stamp out the effects of higher inflation.
But Friday’s blowout numbers bolstered hope that the U.S. economy will keep growing, particularly now that the Fed has begun cutting interest rates. The Fed last month lowered its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years and indicated more cuts will arrive through next year.
Friday’s jobs report was so strong that it pushed traders to abandon bets that the Fed will deliver another larger-than-usual cut to interest rates at its next meeting. They are now forecasting zero chance for a cut of half a percentage point, according to data from CME Group. Just a week ago, they were saying it was better than a coin flip’s chance.
But diminished expectations for future cuts sent the yield on the two-year Treasury shooting up to 3.93% from 3.71% late Thursday. The 10-year yield jumped to 3.97% from 3.85%.
The forced rethink about how low rates will ultimately go hurt stocks of home builders, real-estate owners and other companies that benefit from easier mortgage rates.
This resulted in homebuilders for three of the largest losses in the S&P. D.R. Horton, PulteGroup and Lennar all sank at least 2.5% for three of the biggest losses in the S&P. HD slipped and also held back the Dow to a small extent.
Also Friday, some 45,000 dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports returned to work after their union reached a deal to suspend its three-day strike until January 15th to provide time to negotiate a new contract. That helped calm worries that a lengthy strike could have pushed up on inflation and dragged on the economy.
In the oil market, the price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.6% to $78.05 per barrel to bring its gain for the week to 9.1%. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 0.9% to $74.38, up from roughly $68 at the start of the week.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe following the strong jobs report from the world’s largest economy.
In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.8% in its latest sharp swerve. It soared a bit more than 10% over the week on excitement about a flurry of recent announcements from Beijing to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.
The third-quarter earnings season begins this week with the following: Tuesday – PEP; Thursday – PEP, BLK, JPM, WFC.
Economic reports will have: Tuesday – August trade deficit; Thursday – September C.P.I., weekly jobless claims; Friday – September P.P.I., U. of Michigan mid-October Consumer Sentiment Survey.
