Tale of the Tape
Good evening, y’all, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!! But today, rather than the luck of the Irish, it was the luck of the Fed.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell took the mic and stocks flipped then ripped to close just off intraday highs. Hear more on tonight’s episode of After Hours.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dashed through 33,000 for the first time ever, and the S&P 500 closed at a new all-time high. $SPX is only 26 points from 4K— will it fly through the figure before the end of the week??
The Nasdaq-100 ETF $QQQ fought back and finished up 0.4%.
Even the cryptos crept higher. Bitcoin bounced 2% while Ethereum inched ahead 1.5%.
Lennar lept 14% following last night’s earnings report. The home builder beat estimates andraised guidance. Read the press release here.
Here’s the monstrous monthly chart:
Facebook was the best of the FAANG gang. $FB flew 1.69%, followed closely by $AMZN +1.42%.
General Motors cruised 5% and closed above $60 for the first time ever.
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Caterpillar and Deere both bounced to new all-time highs. $CAT crawled 3%, $DE dashed 1.5%.
GoPro gained 3% to maintain its exhilarating 7-day streak. The stock is up 68% since March 8th, and its daily message volume on Stocktwits is up more than 100%.
Alsooo… the IRS might delay Tax Day! The deadline could be moved from April 15 to May 17.Here’s the Wall Street Journal with more info.
And here are the closing prints:
S&P 500 3,974 +0.29%
Nasdaq 13,525 +0.40%
Russell 2000 2,336 +0.73%
Dow Jones 33,015 +0.58%
The Fed
Powell Presents Policies
Today was the second (and final) day of The Federal Reserve Board and Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings.
During today’s festivities, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a highly-anticipated speech about upcoming policies.
Here are some highlights from the day:
The Fed expects current rises in inflation to be short-lived
Fed officials project a continuation of near-zero rates until late 2023
GDP is expanding at rate of 6.5%, compared to the previously-seen 4.2%
If those were today’s highlights, then Jerome Powell is the real MVP. Here are two Powell Powerisms™ (we just made this up, but we think it’ll stick):
At the Fed, we will continue to provide the economy the support that it needs for as long as it takes.
And:
Our forward guidance for the federal funds rate, along with our balance sheet guidance will ensure that the stance of monetary policy remains highly accommodative as the recovery progresses.
If you’re interested, read the entire transcript here.
Here’s a 5-minute chart of the S&P 500:
We bet you can’t tell when Powell started speaking…