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Markets Close a Lousy Month on a Big Upswing

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Market indexes accelerated into Monday’s close, finishing at session highs and ending the worst month of trading overall since the initial months of the Covid pandemic. A hawkish Fed combined with the rippling affects of the Omicron variant to inject a bearish sentiment into the whole of January trading. Climbing Treasury yields foretold a tighter financial market, adding proof to the pudding.

That’s not to say it was all a loss. Energy was able to post its strongest month in quite some time, +20%, on higher prices and greater demand. The U.S. housing market picked up steam in January, as higher interest rates in the future mean higher mortgage rates — home-buyers pulled forward their interest in obtaining residential real estate ahead of a spike in mortgage interest from multi-year historic lows.

The Dow grew 406 points in today’s session, +1.17%, while the Nasdaq was even stronger: +3.41%, or +469 points. The S&P 500 added gains of +1.89% on the day, and the much-beleaguered small-cap Russell 2000 was up +3.04% today. Throughout the course of January, the Dow was -4%, the S&P -5.86%, the Nasdaq -10% and the Russell -11%. A company like Tesla (TSLA - Free Report) illustrates the challenges of the past month: though it gained +10.7% today, it remained -11% from the start of 2022.

Late-month inflows to oversold stocks is the narrative we saw today and on Friday, especially on the Nasdaq. Specifically for today, a big payday for Boeing (BA - Free Report) helped that company lead the Dow on the day, +5%. As many as 102 planes, including options, has been reached with Qatar Air, for a list price of $34 billion. Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) and Spotify (SPOT - Free Report) were both up big on a notable upgrade at Citi, despite Spotify’s ongoing controversy surrounding Covid misinformation being broadcast by the service’s $100-million personality, Joe Rogan.

In short, it’s been the best two days of trading on the Nasdaq since November 2020. Its stable of irreplaceable tech companies like Apple (AAPL - Free Report) and NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) — up +2.6% and +7.2%, respectively — are finding buyers from very low price points. This is usually not the issue with regard to buying Apple or NVIDIA shares; in fact, quite the opposite.

Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated semiconductor firm Cirrus Logic (CRUS - Free Report) is riding the crest +9% higher in late trading, on better-than-expected fiscal Q3 earnings and higher next-quarter revenue guidance: earnings of $2.54 per share notches an +18% positive earnings surprise, on $548.3 million in quarterly sales which outpaced the $511.1 million in the Zacks consensus. Revenue guidance for fiscal Q4 is now $400-440 million for Cirrus Logic, way up from the $345.3 million analysts had been expecting.

Along with a continuing Q4 earnings season, tomorrow brings us Manufacturing data from both PMI and ISM, job openings and quits for December, and a fresh read on Construction Spending last month. This promises to be an eventful week, with monthly jobs data following on Wednesday and Friday. Let’s be hopeful February is the bounce-back month that counters what we’ve experienced the past 4 1/2 weeks.

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