Daily Market Update – March 29, 2016 (Close)

 

 

 

Daily Market Update – March 29, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was as quiet a trading day as we may have seen all year.

The trading range in the DJIA was less than 100 points and there was never any real feeling that things would break out in either direction.

While we have to wait until the end of the week for the Employment Situation Report, we may not have expected to wait that long for things to break out in either direction.

That’s because Janet Yellen was to speak today and over the course of the remainder of the week there will be some other opportunities for other members of the Federal reserve to try and capture the spotlight.

Increasingly, those other members try to put their own spin on things and they aren’t always in line with what used to be a single and unified voice.

That has caused some gyrations over the past couple of years and it seems increasingly so  during the Yellen term.

That likely has nothing to do with Yellen, but more to do with circumstances.

During most of Bernanke’s tenure everyone was pretty much in agreement over what needed to be the direction of interest rates and most everyone was singular in their determination to prevent disaster.

It’s a little different now and I would guess that even if Bernanke was still Chairman of the Federal Reserve, we would be hearing more and more personal o[pinions and dissension being expressed.

This morning, ahead of Chairman Yellen’s comments the market was again flat, as was the world overnight.

Oil, too, was fairly subdued yesterday, but the market didn’t follow it’s changing directions and its net change on the day very closely.

As long as oil may head lower, that’s fine, but if there’s a reason for oil to resume some of the strength it had seen in the previous month, I hope that stocks remember to follow along, even if not entirely rational to do so.

So what happened today?

Yellen was dovish and the market really liked it.

In fact, they liked it so much that the market didn’t even care that oil did go lower.

With no new purchases yesterday, I still am in the market to do something, but may be increasingly looking at some of those positions that are ex-dividend next Monday.

My preference is still to be able to generate some income from selling calls on uncovered positions and do have some in mind, waiting for appropriate bids.

Otherwise, this week may just be a story of conflicting stories and views of the economy while we await jobs news to end the week.

Ultimately, we’ll all be asking why anyone was afraid of a 0.25% interest rate increase.


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