Mixed Broad Market Results As Shares of Atossa Genetics, Axsome Therapeutics & Fluent Ran

The broad market results on Wednesday were a bit mixed at the end of the day while remaining within a very tight band of trading throughout. The political scene brought forth a day of “news” items regarding the President Trump impeachment process & the US-China Trade wars took and a back seat while the only economic report was the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report that confirmed a move lower of -5% post last week’s +3.8%  move.

As a result, the S&P 500 & the Dow dropped & the Nasdaq Composite managed to eke out yet another record high. The S&P 500 ended the day down -.04% but the real estate (+1.3%), utilities (+.4%), energy (+.3%), & communication services (+.3%) sectors all were up. The Nasdaq Composite gained +.05%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down -.1%. The Russell 2000 moved higher +.25% at the close of trading. The “fear gauge” Vix (TVIX) ended a higher at $52.20/share at the close of trading up +2.03% in a bit of a reversal from its recent slide.

Economic Reports

On Monday we received the NAHB Housing Market Index for December rose to 76 jumping from 69 in November & the Empire State Manufacturing Survey for December also rose to 3.5.

On Tuesday, we received the total housing starts report which showed mover higher by +3.2% month/month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.365M. Total building permits came in with +1.4% month/month move higher to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.482M. Industrial production also showed a rise of +1.1% in November. The capacity utilization rate also moved higher to 77.3%. The October Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey confirmed that job openings rose to 7.267M.

On Wednesday, we received the weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report that confirmed a move lower of -5% post last week’s +3.8% move.

Investing & Inspiration

“Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.”
-John Maynard Keynes

Tomorrow

The US economic scheduled brings forth the following reports:

• Existing Home Sales for November,
• the weekly Initial and Continuing Claims report,
• the Current Account Balance for the third quarter,
• the Philadelphia Fed Index for December,
• and the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index for November.