For those of us wondering if early 2024 was going to carry along the winning spirit of the past two months of calendar 2023… well, at least we got an answer: No. That’s not to say it’s been a disaster, especially coming off such stellar gains at the end of the year. This feels more like cleaning up after the big party. That said, the Dow eked out a gain for the session, +0.27%, but the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2000 were not quite so lucky: -0.34%, -0.56% and -0.045%, respectively.
All major indices are in the red so far in the first trading week of 2024, with the small-cap Russell down nearly -5% in just three days. It would seem a portion of market sentiment currently is to avoid risky stocks, of which the small-caps are considered to be, as a whole. Realistically, pricing in five or six interest cuts for the Fed this year was probably a bit craven to begin with. Curbing expectations here seems like a sound move.
A big reason for the bifurcation in today’s trading has to do with Apple AAPL, which has now endured its second downgrade in as many days: first Barclay’s takes the iPhone producer to Underweight, and the Piper Sandler goes Neutral from a previous Overweight. Both investment houses slashed share price expectations. With growth rates peaking for the iPhone and other Apple offerings, there is little confidence at this point that Apple Services is going to make up all that slack.
The biggest news of the week, however, comes out before the opening bell tomorrow: December non-farm payrolls from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Expectations are for 170-175K new jobs having been filled last month, but with an Unemployment Rate buoying back up to 3.8% (we’ve been between 3.4% and 4% since January of 2022). Hourly Wages are expected to come down a tick to +0.3% growth for the month; +3.9% year over year, also down slightly. The Fed will keep a close eye on this data as it prepares for its next monetary policy meeting in four weeks.
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