Stocks had a difficult time making up their minds which way to go. Except for a brief surge & then pullback around midday, they hugged the flat line. By day's end, Dow was up 30, advancers over decliners 3-2 & NAZ was up a more impressive 22. Volume on NYSE was 1.6B, a little higher than on many other recent days. Banks continue to roar ahead. Bank of America (BAC) was up 1 to 33½, nearing double its low just a week ago. US Bancorp (USB) another one I like went from 20 to 30 in a week. Today the outstanding recovery performance by financials was overwhelmed by oil. Oil was down 4¼ at 124, a price last seen in June when it was going up. I've given up trying to come up with brilliant reasons for wild swings. It's easier to accept them as "normal" moves with little reason behind them. Of course, slowing economies in the US & to some extent around the world might be in back of the minds of traders. We are also going into main part of hurricane season, introducing more unknowns going forward.
The FED released their beige book report which told us what we already know. The economy is struggling, they have to balance the needs of raising interest rates to fight inflation vs lowering rates to help the economy. Amazon (AMZN) just reported strong sales & earnings for Q2. They were up 2.57 during the day but little changed after hours awaiting the conference call which will clean up details. Costco (COST) had a very gloomy report greeted with a big sell-off, down 8.57. Congress should be finalizing their plans today aimed at helping FNM/FRE, the pres will sign their bill. Stay tuned!
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