 | | |  Good morning. Yesterday saw the latest Fed meeting. As expected, the Fed had some nice things to say about how the economy was doing, and why all those rising prices and shrinking portion sizes at the grocery store were temporary. But when it came to, say, pulling back on the billions of dollars per day of bond buying, the central bank once again punted on the issue, saying they were looking into it.
This is a replay of its model from the last crisis. Yes, the Fed will eventually scale back its bond buying, possibly even to zero. And it may, some years after that, even raise interest rates again. But if another crisis hits? It's back to the money printing. That's why we'll never go back to the normalcy of the 1990s-era Fed, where interest rates fluctuated over various concerns, and when you could avoid the risk of stocks by parking your cash in a bank account for 4-5 percent returns.
Now here's the rest of the news: | | | | | |
| | |  | DOW 34,930.80 | -0.36% | | | | S&P 4,400.66 | -0.02% | | |  | NASDAQ 14,762.58 | +0.70% | | | | | *As of market close | | | • | Stocks traded mixed on Wednesday, with tech closing higher. | | | • | Oil rose 0.8 percent, closing at $72.23 per barrel. | | | • | Gold rose 0.5 percent, last going for $1,808 per ounce. | | | • | Cryptocurrencies generally rallied, with Bitcoin at $40,334 at the stock market close. | | | | | | | |
| | Insider Trading Report: Anthem (ANTM) | | | | Ryan Schneider, a director at Anthem (ANTM), recently picked up 1,300 shares. The buy increased his stake by 38 percent, and came to a total price of just under $500,000.
Schneider was the last insider to buy at the company as well, picking up shares back in February. Overall, company insiders, including both C-suite executives and directors, have been big sellers of shares in the past three years.
» FULL STORY | | | | |
| | Unusual Options Activity: Activision Blizzard (ATVI) | | | | Shares of game studio Activision Blizzard (ATVI) have broken down to the lower end of their trading range over the past few months. One trader sees the possibility for a bounce back higher in the coming months.
That's based on the February 2022 $92.50 calls. With 204 days until expiration, 8,940 contracts traded against a prior open interest of 141 for a 63-fold surge in volume. The buyer of the calls paid $5.10 to make the trade.
» FULL STORY | | | | |
| | • | The Market's Valuation May be Misleading
By any conventional measure of valuation such as earnings or sales, the S&P 500 is trading at an historically high valuation. However, a majority of names are trading at a discount to the index's historical average of about 15 times earnings. That's due to a number of companies with low or no earnings pushing the overall valuation higher, and a sign that stockpickers can still find value in this market. | | | | • | Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Reached
A group of senators has reached an agreement covering the major issues between two partisan infrastructure bills. The potential deal comes after weeks of positioning and haggling, with most of the disagreement on where to spend the money and how much should be new spending rather than a reallocation of prior spending. | | | | • | Walmart Moves to Cover College Tuition for Workers
While often in the crosshairs for how it pays workers, retailer Walmart (WMT) has announced that it will pay for full college tuition and book costs at 10 different schools for its US workers. Participants must remain full or part-time workers. This latest benefit may be a way for the retailer to retain its talent amidst a tight job market. | | | | • | Airline Workers Report Hotel Room Shortage
A labor union representing workers of American Airlines (AAL) report that the carrier is not providing crews with enough hotel rooms or even transportation during layovers. The shortage may stem in part to the sudden rise in tourism to pre-pandemic levels. | | | | • | Algolia Hits $2.25 Billion Valuation
Search-as-a-service startup Algolia has raised $150 million in a Series D funding round, valuing the company at $2.25 billion. That's more than quadruple the valuation at its Series C round in October 2019. The company now reports over 10,000 customers, and that it handles over 1.5 trillion search queries for those customers every year. | | |
| | | | TOP | | | NTES | 13.383% | | | | JD | 8.507% | | | | TCOM | 7.695% | | | | AMD | 7.58% | | | | MRNA | 6.338% | | | | BOTTOM | | | AMG | 7.023% | | | | HUM | 5.709% | | | | SIRI | 3.428% | | | | CHRW | 3.077% | | | | SWK | 3.06% | | | | |
| | |  | Risk sentiment is on edge as pressure continues in Chinese equities. This comes at an inopportune time as markets are digesting the pervasiveness of a growth scare. | | | - TD Securities, in a note to clients, on why China's crackdown on tech companies is coming at a challenging time for the market rally. | |
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