S&P 500 closed Wednsday 8/13 at 6467, up 0.3% for the day, and up 9.9% YTD (investors giddy over rate cut chances)

[progree]

This discussion thread is pinned.

Last edited Wed Aug 13, 2025, 08:12 PM - Edit history (143)

despite yesterday's reported core CPI rise on a year-over-year basis from 2.9% to 3.1%, It's month-over-month rise was 0.3%, the biggest month-over-month increase in 6 months. But investors think that's orange (Dear Leader's favorite color) rather than red hot.

Year to date (YTD) is from the Dec 31 closing level.

https://finance.yahoo.com/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-jumps-450-points-as-sp-500-nasdaq-log-back-to-back-records-on-surging-fed-rate-cut-bets-200115170.html
(scroll down the page for other market stories from today)

US stocks climbed on Wednesday with the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC) and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) notching back-to-back record highs as investors bet almost unanimously on a Federal Reserve rate cut at its next meeting following the latest inflation data. ((The Dow closed 92 points below its all-time high set last December-Progree))

According to the CME Fedwatch tool, The expectations for a rate cut at the September 17 meeting has increased over yesterday to where 0% expect no cut, 93.7% expect a quarter-point cut, and 6.3% expect a half-point, aka "jumbo" cut.
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

Later this week, investors will get two more snapshots on the state of the economy with the release of the Producer Price Index on Thursday and retail sales data on Friday.

From yesterday's story:

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that "core" inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 3.1% over the past year in July, ahead of June's 2.9% increase. The reading indicated that rising goods inflation is no longer being offset by easing services inflation.

But on a headline basis, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 2.7% year over year, matching June and coming in softer than economists' expectations of a 2.8% rise.

I would characterize the regular "all items" CPI as mild (compared to the previous month's report, year-over-year was unchanged at 2.7%, while month-over-month was +0.2%) , but the Core CPI report as hot. But investors apparently focused on the former, even though the Fed focuses on the core measure as a better predictor of FUTURE inflation trends.
LBN thread -- https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143511498
See graphs and key numbers in https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143511498#post15


=============================================
The S&P 500 closed Wednsday August 13 at 6467, up 0.3% for the day,
and up 11.8% from the 5783 election day closing level,
and up 7.8% from the inauguration eve closing level,
and up 9.9% year-to-date,

S&P 500
# Election day close (11/5/24) 5783
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 5997
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 5882
# All-time closing high: 6467 on 8/13/25
# Trump II era low point (going all the way back to election day Nov5): 4983 on April 8

# Several market indexes: https://finance.yahoo.com/
# S&P 500: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history/

========================================================

I'm not a fan of the DOW as it is a cherry-picked collection of just 30 stocks that are price-weighted, which is silly. It's as asinine as judging consumer price inflation by picking 30 blue chip consumer items, and weighting them according to their prices. But since there is an automatically updating embedded graphic, here it is. It takes several, like 6 hours, after the close for it to update, like about 10 PM EDT.
(If it still isn't updated, try right-clicking on it and opening in a new tab. #OR# click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/ ).

The Dow closed Tuesday at 44,459, and it closed Wednsday at 44,922, a rise of 1.0% (464 points) for the day

It closed last Wednesday, July 23, just 4 points below its 45,014 all-time high set in December. But now it's 92 points away from that.

I don't maintain statistics for the DOW like percent up or down since election day, or year-to-date, or from the all-time high etc. like I do for the S&P 500.

https://finance.yahoo.com/
DOW: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/
. . . . . . https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history/

DOW
# Election day close (11/5/24) 42,222
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 43,488
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 42,544
# DOW All Time High: 12/4/24: 45,014

# Correction level beginning 10% down: 40,513,
# Bear market level: beginning 20% down: 36,011 (we've not reached that level yet in Trump II so far)

DJIA means Dow Jones Industrials Average. It takes about 6 hours after the close to update, so check it after 10 PM EDT


I don't have an embeddable graph for the S&P 500, unfortunately, but to see its graph, click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/

While I'm at it, I might as well show Oil and the Dollar:

Crude Oil


US Dollar Index (DX-Y.NYB)


If you see a tiny graphics square above and no graph, right click on the square and choose "load image". There should be a total of 3 graphs. And remember that it typically takes about 6 hours after the close before these graphs update.