U.S. stock indexes slipped Tuesday after Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the economy is “ripe” for a rate hike.
The Dow was down 85.7 points, or 0.5%, to 17513. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% to 2089, while the Nasdaq fell 21 points, or 0.4%, to 5094.
As September approaches my feeling is that you will hear much from the Fed heads as well as pundits and economists about when the first rate hike should occur. Bottom line, we are back to that “uncertainty” thing again and we all know the market hares uncertainty. Until the Fed raises, rates there will be speculation, and that will continue to be part of our market life for a while.
These Fed heads have been doing this to us for years now, so I wouldn’t put to much into it.
That aside, the market has been quite squishy lately and seems unable to grab a direction. As a result of this lousy behavior, I took some light profits today. We don’t have a lot of names on the board this month and I think its a good time to watch for a day, unless for some reason the market rips higher tomorrow and gives us confidence to be really long again.
I did however add one new long today NK.
As usual, go to the P&L tab on the blog to stay updated on the changes.
See you in the morning.