Market Alert - First Hour

Stocks followed futures and opened higher, holding modest gains as they test that higher open a half hour into the session. As the first hour progresses, however, stocks are peeling back from early gains with NYSE large caps negative, growth indices almost there.

SP500 -2.05, -0.07%
NASDAQ 1.99, 0.02
DJ30 FLAT
SP400 0.02%
RUTX FLAT
SOX 0.99%

The opening bounce is dissipating and will have to see when the bids return after an opening pop.

Florence has made landfall and as anticipated, it weakened considerably from the cat 4 hype several days before landfall. Lots of rain and lots of flooding, and that is always the problem. Thank goodness it was not cat 4 or 3 or 2. May back up into the ocean and then have a second landfall later farther south. Not great.

WMT and storm stocks are lower as the carnage was not as horrid as feared 5 days ago.


Bonds: 10 year over 3% for the first time since August. Trying to avoid that flat yield curve.


Retail Sales Aug: Smallest gain in 6 months
Overall: 0.1 vs 0.4 exp vs 0.7 July (from 0.5). NICE revision

Ex-auto: 0.3 vs 0.5 exp vs 0.9 July (from 0.6). Nice revision as well.


Industrial Production: 0.4 vs 0.4 vs 0.4 (from 0.1). NICE revision.
Utilities: +1.2% due to A/C usage
Mining: 0.7% and 0.7% July. +14% in 12 months!

Capacity: 78.1 vs 78.3 exp vs 77.9 prior (from 78.1)


Paul Manafort enters a guilty plea on his second case, striking a deal with Mueller.



______________________________________
Jon Johnson, Chief Market Strategist
InvestmentHouse.com

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