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Markets Sag Again Ahead of Fed Presser Wednesday

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Market indexes sagged from the open once again, attempting to pare losses by the afternoon but coming up short of higher closing levels. The Dow posted its second-straight miss, -0.27%, while the S&P 500 dipped 0.19% on the day after hitting new intraday highs in the early morning. The Nasdaq’s chart today looks more like stair steps going down most of the session, -0.71%. The small-cap Russell 2000 was -0.26% today.

This marks the Nasdaq’s worst trading day in two weeks as investors book profits from yesterday’s +0.74% gains, as Tech stocks sold off 0.64% on the day. On the other hand, Energy was up roughly 2% on the day, bolstered by ExxonMobil’s (XOM - Free Report) +3.5% on the day following a positive investor note. Chevron (CVX - Free Report) brought in 2.25% in regular trading. WTI crude rose 1.9% in the session.

Enterprise software giant Oracle (ORCL - Free Report) posted yet another earnings beat after the closing bell, with $1.54 per share easily surpassing the $1.31 in the Zacks consensus. Revenues grew 8% year over year to $11.2 billion, topping the $11.07 billion our analysts were expecting. Oracle’s cloud business grew 8% to $7.4 billion in the quarter. Yet the company, whose last earnings miss was five years ago, fell 2% on the news. That said, it’s still up 28% year to date.

The big news of the week has yet to happen, of course: Fed Chair Jay Powell’s appearance for the first time since early May following the two-day meeting at the Fed, in light of plenty of new data. More complex than simply a jubilant ramp-up of every metric, exisitng data points over the past month and a half suggest there is still a chance the Fed may conclude inflation pressures on the current market are transitory and temporary.

It’s unlikely Powell will look to make waves in his press conference tomorrow at 2pm ET, but augmented language from anything we’ve seen so far this year would probably inform investors whether a new timetable for tapering bond buybacks might be anticipated. Then again,his language may not be augmented — which would likely cause a bigger reaction. Thus, many of us will have Powell’s address dialed in clearly Wednesday afternoon.

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