Stocks closed narrowly mixed yesterday with the Dow and the S&P ending slightly lower, while the Nasdaq and small-cap Russell 2000 closed slightly to moderately higher.

Yesterday's news was dominated by headlines regarding European leaders and President Zelensky talking with President Trump at the White House about a peace deal with Russia. While not specifically tied to the market, what comes out of the broader discussions could have an impact on the world economy.

In other news, yesterday's Housing Market Index slipped to 32 vs. last month's 33 and views for the same.

Today we'll get the Housing Starts and Permits report, and E-Commerce Retail Sales.

But the two items the market is likely looking forward to the most is Wednesday's FOMC Minutes, and Friday's Jackson Hole meeting.

Wednesday's FOMC Minutes will give us a glimpse into last month's meeting when two Federal Reserve board members dissented on monetary policy, voting for rate cuts vs. the majority decision to hold rates steady. The two board members' dissent was the first time this happened in over 30 years. And we'll see what else might have been said at that meeting.

The Fed has sat on rates all year for fear of inflation rising due to tariffs. But the rise has been modest, defying fears of an elevated increase. In spite of the Fed's repeated concerns regarding inflation, they are still projecting two rate cuts this year (presumably by 25 basis points each). With only 3 more meetings left in the year (September, October and December), then it would appear that two of those could result in rate cuts. But clearly, those two board members in July's meeting thought cuts should be forthcoming sooner rather than later and they voted as such.

As of now, the odds of a rate cut at September's meeting stands at 83.2%.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be talking on Friday at the Jackson Hole summit in WY. While the expectation is for the Fed to cut rates next month, the market will be listening for any hint from Mr. Powell that it's the case. Moreover, people will be listening for Mr. Powell's outlook on the job's market, given last month's lower-than-expected job gains, and inflation, and given the recent higher-than-expected readings.

In the meantime, earnings season continues. We'll get another 284 companies on deck to report for the remainder of the week, including Home Depot and Medtronic today.

Next week marks the official end of earnings season when NVIDIA reports on 8/27 after the close.

FYI ? for those who are interested to know, reported earnings by Alcoa has long been considered the 'official' start to earnings season, while Hewlett-Packard (now HP Inc.) has long been considered the 'official' end to earnings season. That's because, Alcoa, at one time, was the first Dow component to report earnings. And Hewlett-Packard was the last of the Dow components to report earnings. Ironically, both AA and HPQ are no longer part of the Dow Jones Index. But after bookending earnings season for so long, that tradition has stuck, regardless of their current Dow non-membership status.

HPQ reports on 8/27 after the close, but NVDA now reports on 8/27 after the close as well. And while they both share the same date, NVIDIA's modern-day importance to today's economy has many now citing them as the new official end of earnings season rather than HP.

(If a question like that ever comes up on a trivia quiz, now you know.)

See you tomorrow,