Profit Taking May Contribute To Initial Pullback On Wall Street

[ADVFN]( [[Global Email] World Daily Markets Bulletin]( Friday, 22 March 2024 09:09:49 [ADVFN Twitter]( [Monitor]( [Quote]( [Charts]( [News]( [Toplists]( [Boards]( Breaking: Price of Gold & Silver set to EXPLODE in 2023! Read Now... Attention investors and retirement savers...Investment experts and even mainstream news publications are predicting a windfall for gold and silver prices in 2023! This could be the year we see the value of precious metals like gold and silver EXPLODE! You won't want to miss out! [Reserve Your FREE Gold & Silver Kit Today!]( --------------------------------------------------------------- US Market Bitcoin [Bitcoin]( DAX [DAX]( Dow Jones [Dow Jones]( Nasdaq [Nasdaq]( The major U.S. index futures are currently pointing to a modestly lower open on Friday, with stocks likely to give back ground after trending higher over the past several sessions. Profit taking may contribute to initial weakness on Wall Street, as some traders look to cash in on the recent strength in the markets. The major averages gave back ground after an early rally on Thursday but still ended the session at new record closing highs. Lingering uncertainty about the outlook for interest rates may also weigh on the markets following the Federal Reserve?s monetary policy announcement earlier in the week. While the Fed maintained its forecast for three interest rate cuts this year, the timing of the first rate cut remains undetermined. The chances of a quarter point rate cut in June have rebounded to 65.9 percent, according to CME Group?s FedWatch Tool, but there is still a 27.8 percent chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged at the meeting. Stocks showed a strong move to the upside in early trading on Thursday but gave back ground over the course of the session. While the major averages pulled back well off their best levels of the day, they still ended the session at new record closing highs. The Dow finished the day firmly in positive territory, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted more modest gains. The Dow climbed 269.24 points or 0.7 percent to 39,781.37, the S&P 500 rose 16.91 points or 0.3 percent at 5,241.53 and the Nasdaq edged up 32.43 points or 0.2 percent to 16,401.84. The early strength on Wall Street came as stocks continued to benefit from positive reaction to Wednesday's monetary policy announcement by the Federal Reserve. While the Fed left interest rates unchanged, as widely expected, the central bank also maintained its forecast for three interest rate cuts this year. The unrevised rate cut forecast is seen as bullish for stocks, as some investors had been worried recent hotter-than-expected inflation data could lead Fed officials to reconsider lowering rates. "We view today's FOMC interest rate decision and press conference as bullish for the equity markets and soft landing scenario," Larry Tentarelli, President and Founder, Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, said on Wednesday. "A concern that we had going into was the recent higher than forecast CPI readings," he added. "The FOMC dot plot (FOMC members projections for future interest rate levels) remained unchanged at 3 cuts expected for 2024, which we view as a major positive." In U.S. economic news, the Labor Department released a report unexpectedly showing a slight drop by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended March 16th. The Labor Department said initial jobless claims edged down to 210,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level of 212,000. The dip surprised economists, who had expected jobless claims to rise to 215,000 from the 209,000 originally reported for the previous week. The National Association of Realtors also released on report showing existing home sales unexpectedly continued to soar in the month of February. NAR said existing home sale index spiked by 9.5 percent to an annual rate of 4.38 million in February after jumping by 3.1 percent to a rate of 4.00 million in January. The continued surge came as a surprise to economists, who had expected existing home sales to pull back by 1.5 percent to a rate of 3.94 million. With the unexpected increase, existing home sales reached their highest level since hitting an annual rate of 4.530 million in February 2023. Semiconductor stocks continued to see significant strength on the day, resulting in a 2.3 percent surge by the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Chipmaker Micron (MU) helped lead the sector higher, soaring by 14.1 percent after reporting better than expected fiscal second quarter results and providing upbeat fiscal third quarter guidance. Considerable strength also remained visible among financial stocks, with the NYSE Arca Broker/Dealer Index and the KBW Bank Index both jumping by 2.2 percent. Housing stocks also turned in a strong performance following the existing home sales data, driving the Philadelphia Housing Sector Index up by 1.7 percent. Computer hardware, networking and transportation stocks also showed notable moves to the upside, while weakness emerged among tobacco and telecom stocks. --------------------------------------------------------------- Do you day trade? Trader Alerts streams stocks reaching new highs and lows as well as stocks breaking out of previous volume highs as they happen. It's a powerful tool for day trading ideas. [Learn More / Upgrade]( --------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. Economic Reports CADUSD [CADUSD]( Oil [Oil]( Gold [Gold]( EURUSD [EURUSD]( Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to give opening remarks before a ?Fed Listens? event to hear perspectives on current economic conditions and how the pandemic experience has reshaped the economy and the workforce at 9 am ET. Following Powell?s remarks, Federal Reserve Board Governor Michelle Bowman is due to moderate ?Panel 1: Evolving Conditions for Families and Job Seekers? before the ?Fed Listens? event. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson is scheuled to moderate ?Panel 2: Industry Perspectives? at the ?Fed Listens? event at 10 am ET. At 12:15 pm ET, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr is due to participate in a discussion on ?International Economic and Monetary Design? at the Transnational Law Conference on the International Law of Money. Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic is scheduled to participate in moderated conversation on ?Household Finance? before the 2024 Household Finance Conference at 4 pm ET. --------------------------------------------------------------- [3 Tiny Stocks Primed to Explode]( The world's greatest investor ? Warren Buffett ? has a simple formula for making big money in the markets. He buys up valuable assets when they are very cheap. For stock market investors that means buying up cheap small cap stocks like these with huge upside potential. We've set up an alert service to help smart investors take full advantage of the small cap stocks primed for big returns. [Click here for full details and to join for free.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Stocks in Focus Shares of Lululemon (LULU) are moving sharply lower in pre-market trading after the athletic apparel retailer reported better than expected fiscal fourth quarter results but provided disappointing guidance. Athletic footwear and apparel giant Nike (NKE) may also come under pressure after reporting fiscal third quarter earnings and revenues that exceeded estimates but slowing growth in China. Meanwhile, shares of FedEx (FDX) are seeing significant pre-market strength after the delivery giant reported fiscal third quarter results that beat expectations and announced a new $5 billion share repurchase program. Electronics retailer Best Buy (BBY) may also move to the upside after JPMorgan upgraded its rating on the company?s stock to Overweight from Neutral. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Sell every Stock except ONE]( Markets are down... But Jeff Clark couldn't care less because he ignores almost every stock in the market except ONE. He lives financially free trading this One Stock Once per month... [Ticker Revealed.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Europe European stocks are turning in a mixed performance on Friday, with investors largely making cautious moves following recent record highs. In addition to digesting the latest batch of regional economic data, markets are also reacting to some corporate news. After the Federal Reserve held rates unchanged on Wednesday and signaled three rate cuts this year, the Bank of England signaled the British economy's trajectory towards potential rate reductions the following day, and the Swiss National Bank announced a surprise rate cut, significantly lifting investor sentiment. While the U.K.?s FTSE 100 Index is up by 0.5 percent, the German DAX Index is nearly unchanged and the French CAC 40 Index is down by 0.4 percent. In the UK market, Phoenix Group Holdings is soaring after the company reported a pretax profit for 2023. The company said cash generation in 2023 was 2.024 billion pound, up from 1.504 billion pound a year earlier. Reckitt Benckiser is gaining about 3 percent. Natwest Group, Lloyds Banking, Prudential, WPP, Vodafone, Scottish Mortgage, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Unilever, Legal & General and Anglo American Plc are up 1.3 to 2 percent. In the German market, Siemens Energy, Sartorius, Deutsche Post, Vonovia and Zalando are gaining 2 to 3 percent. Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, RWE and MTU Aero Engines are up 1 to 1.5 percent. Infineon, Puma, BMW, Munich RE and Continental are down 0.7 to 1.6 percent. In the French market, Teleperformance is climbing more than 2 percent. Carrefour, BNP Paribas, WorldLine, Sanofi, Edenred, Societe Generale, Thales, Orange and Veolia are gaining 1 to 1.8 percent. Air Liquide, Kering, Hermes International, LVMH and STMicroElectronics are down sharply. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed U.K. retail sales remained unchanged in February after rebounding by a revised 3.6 percent in January. Sales were forecast to fall 0.4 percent. Excluding auto fuel, retail sales volume posted a slower monthly growth of 0.2 percent in February after climbing 3.4 percent in January. On a yearly basis, overall retail sales fell 0.4 percent, in contrast to the 0.5 percent increase, the data showed. Sales were forecast to drop 0.7 percent. U.K. consumer confidence stagnated in March, but households turned positive about their future personal financial situation for the first time since 2021, survey results from the market research group GfK showed. The consumer sentiment index held steady at -21 in March. The score was forecast to improve to -19. Data released by Destatis showed Germany's import prices dropped 5.9 percent year-over-year in January, slower than the 7 percent decline in December. Prices have been falling since March 2023. This is the first result after the conversion of import and export prices to the new base year 2021, Destatis said. German business confidence improved in March, reports said citing survey results from the ifo Institute. The business sentiment index rose more-than-expected to 87.8 in March. The score was forecast to climb to 86.0 from February's initially estimated value of 85.5. --------------------------------------------------------------- Do you have a full view of the market? Level 2 lets you see all of the orders to buy and sell shares, allowing you to see what is really going on in the market. If you don?t have this in your trading toolkit, you?re at a serious disadvantage. [Learn More / Upgrade]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Asia USDCAD [USDCAD]( USDEUR [USDEUR]( USDGBP [USDGBP]( USDJPY [USDJPY]( Equity markets in Asia finished Friday?s trading on a mixed note amidst an uptick in inflation in Japan as well as uncertainty about rate cuts by the Fed. The dollar's rebound as well as mixed corporate earnings weighed on sentiment. China's Shanghai Composite Index slumped 1.0 percent to finish trading at 3,048.03. The day's trading ranged between 3,073.21 and 3,027.76. The Shenzhen Component Index plunged 1.2 percent to close at 9,565.56. The Japanese benchmark Nikkei 225 Index added 72.77 points or 0.2 percent to close at 40,888.43. The day's trading range was between 41,087.75 and 40,888.43. Sharp Corp. gained 5.2 percent. Suzuki Motor Corp., Nissan Motor and Comsys Holdings Corp. all gained more than 3 percent. Bridgestone Corp. followed with a gain of close to 3 percent. Chugai Pharmaceuticals tumbled 3.6 percent. Advantest Corp. and Komatsu slipped slid than 2 percent. Kyowa Kirin as well as SMC Corp. fell more than 1 percent. The Hang Seng Index of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange plunged 363.63 points or 2.2 percent from the previous close to finish trading at 16,499.47. The day's trading range was between a high of 16,747.20 and a low of 16,341.61. The Korean Stock Exchange's Kospi Index slipped 0.2 percent to close trading at 2,748.55. The day's trading range was between 2,273.97 and 2,763.06. Australia's S&P/ASX200 Index closed trading at 7,770.60, shedding 11.40 points or 0.2 percent. The day's trading range was between 7,738.60 and 7,786.80. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare surged 7.7 percent. Virgin Money rallied 4.1 percent. Light & Wonder, Life 360 and Goodman Group all added more than 3 percent in the day's trading. Genesis Minerals dove 6.3 percent. Bellevue Gold, Telix Pharmaceuticals, Emerald Resources and Audinate Group all fell more than 5 percent. The NZX 50 Index of the New Zealand Stock Exchange added 62.91 points or 0.5 percent to close trading at 11,978.62, versus the previous close of 11,915.71. Trading ranged between 11,915.71 and 12,002.47. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare surged 5.7 percent followed by Manawa Energy that rallied 3.8 percent. Vector, Skycity Entertainment as well as A2 Milk Company all added close to 2 percent. Tourism Holdings, Vista Group International as well as Westpac Banking Corp. declined more than 3 percent. Heartland Group Holdings and ANZ Holdings both fell more than 2 percent. --------------------------------------------------------------- Do you day trade? Trader Alerts streams stocks reaching new highs and lows as well as stocks breaking out of previous volume highs as they happen. It's a powerful tool for day trading ideas. [Learn More / Upgrade]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Commodities Crude oil futures are inching up $0.14 to $81.21 a barrel after slipping $0.20 to $81.07 a barrel on Thursday. Meanwhile, after surging $23.70 to $2,184.70 an ounce in the previous session, gold futures are falling $9.30 to $2,175.40 an ounce. On the currency front, the U.S. dollar is trading at 151.10 yen versus the 151.62 yen it fetched at the close of New York trading on Thursday. Against the euro, the dollar is valued at $1.0826 compared to yesterday?s $1.0860. --------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this news bulletin or edit your mailing list settings click [here](. Registered Office/Accounts Dept: Suite 27, Essex Technology Centre, The Gable, Fyfield Road, Ongar, CM5 0GA. Customer Support +1 888-992-3836. Company registered in England and Wales: Number 2374988 VAT No. GB 549 2130 49