1. Moving the markets

Despite an early morning bounce, the Dow and the S&P 500 succumbed to weakness and gave back most of their initial gains and ended essentially unchanged. The Nasdaq went the other way but managed to climb out of a hole to score a modest gain, after swinging wildly late in the session.

It appeared to be a day of rest for the indexes with low volatility keeping markets in check, despite strong readings form home prices and consumer confidence.

Added CNBC:

The market has churned out a series of record highs in recent weeks, but the gains have been relatively modest, and some strategists have pointed to weak market breadth, measured by the performance of average stocks and the number of individual names making new highs, as a potential area of concern.

Bond yields rode the rollercoaster and ended slightly down, while the US Dollar Index continued its rebound but failed to take out last week’s highs. None of this action assisted Gold, with the precious metal breaking beneath recent lows but bouncing into the close.

It was another session during which not much was gained and not much was lost.

1. Moving the markets

The overall market struggled for direction except for the Nasdaq, which started the week strong and pushed the index to another all-time high.

The tech sector dominated with Facebook contributing via a 4% jump, after a US court dismissed an antitrust suit against the company.

Semiconductors also showed signs of life, while Boeing headed the wrong way, after issues with regulators could not be resolved, thereby keeping the Dow in the red throughout the session.

The S&P 500 meandered around its unchanged line all day, without making much headway, until a last hour boost pushed the index not only into the green but also into record territory.

Today, “value” got skunked and “growth” got pumped, with RPV giving back some 1.44%, as bond yields plunged after Friday’s spike, a move which totally unraveled today.    

The US Dollar Index did not go anywhere and, in combination with sinking yields helped gold to some early gains, but in the end, it turned more or less into a break even scenario.

With two more trading days to go in June, it looks likely the S&P 500 will score another winning month, despite having briefly dipped into the negative on the 18^th, a pullback which was quickly recovered.  

1. Moving the markets

While the major indexes were shooting for a 3^rd winning day in a row, the session turned out to be sloppy one with only the Nasdaq closing in the green, while the Dow and S&P 500 danced around their respective unchanged lines. Both dove into the close and ended up with tiny losses.

So far, for the month of June only the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are in the green having gained 0.9% and 3.8%, while the Dow remains in the red due to weakness in its Caterpillar and JPM components.

Small Caps were moderately higher, but Dallas Fed President Kaplan spoiled the party today with these hawkish remarks, as Zero Hedge pointed out:

The U.S. economy will likely meet the Federal Reserve’s threshold for tapering its asset purchases sooner than people think.

As we make substantial further progress, which I think will happen sooner than people expect — sooner rather than later — and we’re weathering the pandemic, I think we’d be far better off, from a risk-management point of view, beginning to adjust these purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities.

I’d rather start tapering, assuming we meet our conditions, sooner rather than later so that we have more flexibility in deciding what we want to do on rates down the road.

That was enough cold water to send the Dow and S&P into the red where they closed at the session’s lows.

The US Dollar index trod water and ended just about unchanged, as did bond yields. Gold gave up it’s early gains and closed slightly in the red.  

Not much gained and not much lost sums up this Wednesday session.

Due to some business commitments, I will be out tomorrow. The next market commentary will be posted on Friday.