Stocks opened solidly higher today. At 11 a.m. and change New York time, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 1.75%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had gained 1.48%. The NASDAQ Composite was ahead 2.46%. And the small-cap Russell 2000 was higher by 1.82%.
The cause, the consensus commentary had it, was that investors and traders had decided after listening to the Federal Reserve yesterday that the U.s. central bank would stop raising interest rates sooner than expected.
By 3:20 p.m. though, the indexes were in full retreat. The S&P 500 was down 0.28% and the Dow was lower by 0.44%. The NASDAQ Composite had trimmed its gain to 0.15%. And the Russell 2000 had retreated to a 0.66% loss.
The cause? Either a rethink of the implications of what the Fed said yesterday or maybe, profit-taking on the morning’s gains?
At the close, the indexes had made up part of the afternoon’s losses. The S&P 500 closed up 0.30% on the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead 0.33%. The NASDAQ Composite had moved to a 1.01% gain. And the Russell 2000 had cut its losses to 0.40%.
Maybe traders and investors just didn’t want to be either long or short overnight.
I argued in my YouTube video on Tuesday that this was a market without a trend. So far that seems about right.
