Episode 521: The DC Today - Monday, December 5, 2022

Futures opened last night down -40 points and stayed around there into the evening. This morning they pointed to a down -100 open pre-market and worsened a bit from there. The market opened down -175 points and worsened throughout the day, though it came a hundred points off the low late in the trading day The Dow closed down -483 points (-1.4%), with the S&P 500 down -1.79% and Nasdaq down -1.93%

Markets on Friday gave us the full gamut of today’s idiocy, as futures quickly dropped over -400 points upon the God-awful news that more jobs were created than expected last month and that lower-income people were making a little more than they had the year before. Then, hours later, markets finished to the upside after a day of volatile trading. Right now, consensus expectations are for $232/share of earnings for the S&P 500 next year, about 7-8% lower than what their peak expectations were but +5% higher than the $221 level of this calendar year. The best thing I can say is that if we had a recession in 2023, and earnings were up +5% on the year, that would be a rarity. The ten-year bond yield closed today at 3.58%, up eight basis points on the day. Top-performing sector for the day: Utilities (-0.60%) Bottom-performing sector for the day: Consumer Discretionary (-2.95%) Most cyclical sectors were down the most today; the most defensive sectors were down the least (but all were down)

Links mentioned in this episode: TheDCToday.com DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com