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By Jeffrey
Cane | Wednesday, September 8 Downcast. The
bull market can appear at times to be a rough beast, tired and
increasingly vulnerable as it trudges forward. While there were no
major drivers today, pessimism about the U.S. economy has been
percolating since the
surprising miss in the August payrolls numbers on Friday. And
several downbeat assessments of U.S. stocks from Wall Street banks have
only darkened the mood. The S&P
500 finished lower today for a third consecutive
session, although it recovered much of its earlier losses. The Russell
2000 index ended down 1.1%. Yesterday, Andrew Sheets, chief
cross-asset strategist at Morgan
Stanley, cut U.S. stocks to
Underweight, saying that the next two months would be
"bumpy." And Savita
Subramanian, head of U.S. equity and
quantitative strategy at Bank of
America, now has a
year-end S&P 500 target of 4250 -- down about 6% from its
current level. Barron's Nicholas
Jasinski has more here. Goldman
Sachs economists, meanwhile, have
reduced their forecast for U.S. economic growth this year, to
a 5.7% annualized rate from 6% previously. Wall Street
is worried about the impact of the Delta variant on consumer spending
and behavior, the withdrawal of stimulus, and political uncertainty. “High
valuations have increased market fragility,” Christian
Mueller-Glissmann, managing director of
portfolio strategy and asset allocation at Goldman
Sachs, told Bloomberg
in an
interview. “If there is a new negative development, it could
generate growth shocks that lead to rapid de-risking.” Elsewhere
today, crude oil futures rose 1.4%, to $69.30 a barrel. The yield on
the 10-year Treasury note settled slightly lower, at 1.33%. Gold fell 0.3%, to $1790 an ounce. The U.S. dollar was stronger against other major currencies
for a third consecutive session, while Bitcoin steadied after yesterday's selloff, trading
around $46,154. There is a
danger in worrying too much. Today's decline in the S&P 500 came even as
250 of its components rose. And the three-day slump in the index
amounts to a mere 0.5% loss. |
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DJIA:
-0.20% to 35,031.07 The Hot
Stock: Perrigo +9% Best Sector:
Utilities +1.8% |
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