Stocks closed mostly lower yesterday, except for the Dow, which eked out another tiny gain of 0.04%.

But all of the indexes closed well off their worst levels of the day, and instead closed near their best levels of the day. The S&P 500, for example, was down -1.05% at its worst, but closed lower by only -0.24% by day's ends.

Before the open yesterday, Target reported earnings and posted a negative EPS surprise of -1.91%, and a positive sales surprise of 1.20%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of -20.2% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of -0.94%. They were down -6.33% yesterday.

The TJX Companies reported before the open as well and posted a positive EPS surprise of 8.91%, and a positive sales surprise of 2.33%. That equated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 14.6%, and a sales growth of 6.90%. They were up 2.71% yesterday.

Today we'll hear from another 61 companies on deck to report, including retailers Walmart and Ross Stores, and other varied companies such as Intuit, Workday and Zoom Communications, to name a handful.

But what everybody was waiting for yesterday was the FOMC Minutes from last month's Fed meeting.

Although, there wasn't much new revealed in the minutes. Fed officials continued to worry about inflation due to tariffs, citing "considerable uncertainty." And concerns were raised about the weakening labor market. Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman were singled out as the two officials more worried about employment than inflation. And not surprisingly, they were the ones who voted to cut rates at last month's meeting. (Two board members dissenting (to cut rates vs. the consensus to hold steady), was the first time this happened (more than one dissent) in over 30 years.)

The market will turn its attention to the Fed on Friday when Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks at the Jackson Hole Symposium 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 market, given last month's lower-than-expected job gains, and inflation, and given the recent higher-than-expected readings.

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).

The odds of a rate cut at September's meeting stand at 80.9%. After that, there's only two more meetings left in the year: October and December.

In other news, MBA Mortgage Applications were down -1.4% w/w with purchases up 0.1%, but refi's down -3.1%.

The Atlanta Fed Business Inflation Expectations remained steady at 2.3% y/y, in line with last month's pace.

Today we'll get Weekly Jobless Claims, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index, the PMI Composite report, Existing Home Sales, Leading Indicators, and the Quarterly Services Survey.

YTD, the Dow is up 5.63%, the S&P 500 is up 8.74%, the Nasdaq is up 9.64%, the small-cap Russell 2000 is up 1.76%, and the mid-cap S&P 400 is up 1.69%.

With the AI trade alive and well, additional tax cut provisions for corporate America, including the 100% immediate cap-ex expensing, and expected interest rate cuts, I'm expecting stocks to finish the year on a strong note.

See you tomorrow,