Stocks were little changed in trading on Tuesday after strong economic data on the labor market and small business optimism.
The Dow was just barely in the red, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was the biggest winner.
We’ve got all the headlines, but first, the scoreboard:
- Dow: 19,855.63, -31.75, (-0.16%) S&P 500: 2,268.92, +0.02, (0.00%) Nasdaq: 5,551.82, +20.00, (0.36%) WTI crude oil: $50.78, -$-1.18, (-2.27%) 10-year Treasury yield: 2.379%, +0.003
Job openings in the US jumped. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed there were 5.522 million job openings in the month of November. That is higher than the 5.5 million expected by economists and up from 5.45 million the month before. US small business optimism surged in December. The NFIB survey of small business optimism rose by 7.4 points to 105.8 in December. The gain was the largest one month jump since 1980 and the highest level since 2004. Richmond Fed president Jeffrey Lacker is retiring. The head of the regional bank will step down on October 1. A replacement will be found by the board of directors of the Richmond Fed and confirmed by the Fed’s Board of Governors. Chipotle lowered its expectations for the upcoming quarter. The Mexican fast casual chain said their fourth quarter earnings will be between $0.50 per share and $0.59 per share, much lower than analysts’ expectations of $0.96 per share. Additionally the company said same store sales will fall 4.8%, worse than expectations. Bill Gross released a new letter with a poem about Africa, his outlook for Treasury yields, and his prediction for a Trump presidency. The outlook projected that Trump will be unable to increase US economic growth and said that if the US Treasury 10 year yields hits 2.6% the 30-year bond market bull market will be over.
Additionally:
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The smart money is dumping bank stocks
A warning on China's debt problem
Republicans are starting to tap the brakes on Obamacare repeal