December 13, 2022

The DC Today - Tuesday, December 13, 2022

14 minutes

The CPI report came in well below expectations, and futures were up as much as +830 points pre-market (on top of yesterday’s +520 point rally). The rally basically peaked at the open and then fizzled from there, going negative mid-day, before closing up just a hundred points or so.

Dow: +104 points (+0.30%)

S&P: +0.73%

Nasdaq: +1.01%

10-Year Treasury Yield: 3.50% (- 11 basis points)

Top-performing sector: Real Estate (+2.04%); Energy (+1.77%)

Bottom-performing sector: Consumer Staples (-0.17%) – only negative sector

WTI Crude Oil: $75.25/barrel (-0.19%)

Key Economic Point of the Day:

ASK DAVID

“You (and just about everyone else) focus on the three major stock indices when reporting on the daily market. The Dow, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ often move together, but when they don’t what does it mean? How did these get to be the Big Three, and what do each tell us about the market?”

I actually think the difference between the three indices is quite noteworthy, and even if they often directionally move together, the magnitude of moves is quite different. The Dow is down roughly -7% on the year, while the S&P is down roughly -18% and the Nasdaq roughly -30%. This is really a by-product of the Dow being more diversified than the Nasdaq (i.e., broad American sector diversification in the Dow vs. heavy technology penetration in the Nasdaq). Then the S&P is market-cap weighted (that is, the S&P is well-diversified, but because its constituents are weighted to their size, it becomes very, very tethered to a few mega-cap tech companies.

The Dow was constructed to be the bellwether representation of the American economy reflected in the stock market that it is. It wasn’t like there were competitive index options in the late 19th century and early 20th century when it was constructed. It has stood the test of time, to say the least.

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