Remember all that fear talk on Tuesday after CPI headline inflation came in at a 3.1% annual rate in January versus the projected 2.9%?
Well, that lasted all of a day. Stocks closed up yesterday, February 14 (Happy Valentine’s Day), and again today, February 15. The Standard & Poor’s 500 gained 0.58% today and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.91% higher The NASDAQ Composite was a comparative laggard with a 0.30% gain. And the NASDAQ 100 closed up a scant 0.21%. But the small cap Russell 2000 zoomed higher with a 2.45% pick up.
I’m not too worried about this rally and market–in the short-term–as long as investors and traders keep buying even a slight dip like we had on Tuesday.
Treasuries rebounded too–but not very strongly–with the yield on the 10-year falling just 2 basis points to 4.24% today as bond prices ticked higher.
The CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) fell 2.57% today to 14.01 as fear went on vacation–again.
The S&P 500 moved back over 5,000 to set a new closing high at 5029.73.
To me it looks like the market is making a relatively smooth transition from hoping for the first interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve at the March 20 meeting to expectations for a first cut in June or July.
