Thursday, May 19, 2016

Economic Journal - Thursday, 5/19/2016

(As of 7:20 am PST)


It’s been a busy couple of days on the economic news front and investors are trying to sort out the implications. Yesterday, the markets reacted negatively to the release of the Federal Open Market Committee minutes from their last meeting. The minutes hinted that policy makers are ready to normalize rates as early as June. This news erased some early session gains yesterday and both the Dow and S&P500 closed mostly flat for the day. Also weighing on stocks is a drop in oil prices which fell due to a stronger dollar and an unexpected increase in U.S. crude inventories. On the positive side of the news front, the labor market still looks strong as the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in mid-May fell by 16,000 to 278,000. Worth noting on the earnings calendar are reports from Walmart and Cisco. Walmart is currently up over 8.5% after beating forecasts and Cisco was a big winner with their upbeat report. European stocks are lower today amid news of an EgyptAir plane vanishing from the radar and Asian stocks were mostly in the red overnight.

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