Let's take a look at the board. The S&P 500 down more than half a percent. The Dow down more than 1%. The New York Stock Exchange composite down more than 6/10 of a percent in the Russell 2000 down about half a percent. I'm going to bring in market strategist Eric Crisco from the New York Stock Exchange. Eric how are you doing?
Well, Ashley thank you. How are you?
Good.
Good. Excellent.
So what do you make of this trading day? What was on your radar?
Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty, you know, obviously, it was a pretty down day. Um, but, you know, the S&P is still in its tight range and it's been in between 7000 607,800. We're just bouncing around in that range that we've been in for a little bit now. So it's still solidly in there. You know weakness across the board tech was a little stronger.
The hardware names anyway were stronger. So the microchip names, the semis names those names did pretty well today. The software names got hit though. Most of the other sectors got hit as well. Energy was higher because oil was up. But, you know, basically it was kind of a down day, but again, only down 0.5%.
It wasn't a huge move. But definitely, you know, it's living up to September is living up to its name as the worst month for equities right now, so we've still seen a lot of red.
Why is everyone saying September is the worst month? I know historically the data shows that. But why is that the case?
Yeah. So you know, it's just obviously yes, it's it's I think it's the only month that is down over the past 100 years basically on an average basis. But you know, you're coming out of the summer, you're getting traders back onto the desks, you're getting repositioning, you're getting things ready for the to the end of the year window dressing.
You know, some funds will close in the next several months. They'll close their books. So there's just a lot of movement, um, you know, still coming out of the lull. And then December is it really is usually a pretty strong month. So you just kind of had this kind of ebb and flow of, of money moving around generally just a seasonality that just compresses prices over the long run.
And do you think markets are going to react to CPI and PPI data coming out later this week?
Yeah, I mean last week was the big monthly employment print. That was pretty hot. Uh, so you know markets now they took, as you said before, they kind of said, okay, we're going to price in a rate hike. 60% chance of a rate hike going into the to the fed meeting in a couple of days. So that CPI and PPI print that we'll see later this week.
That's going to kind of reinforce those bets. Either they're going to press their bets and say yeah it looks like inflation's hot. They're going to hike. Or you know maybe the CPI print comes in low cooler. And maybe those rates kind of or those expectations come back to more of a 50/50, you know chance. Some of the fed officials have spoken recently and they said, oh, my vote is going to be based on what happens in CPI.
So a couple of fed members have said that that means that this print, they're saying they're going to look at it. Investors are definitely going to be looking at it.
Do you think that the timing of this coming out like right before the fed meeting is going to be like, make it more significant to the fed? Or do you think it's going to be the actual data itself?
Yeah, I think it's just the data itself. I mean, there, you know, it lines up like you said, it lines up pretty close to when the when the meeting is. But yeah, they're, they're, they've said that they're very focused on the data. They're going to move based or not move based on the data. so less the timing of what's actually in the report.
Yeah.
All right. And NYSE listed Oracle which did pop today I checked it last. It was up more than 2% to reporting its earnings on Thursday. What do you expect.
Yeah. Big big big important name a huge name for AI. They're one of the big, um. They're one of the biggest data center builders that that there are the hyperscalers. So it's definitely going to be, uh, you know, they're going to investors are going to compare what Oracle has said versus what Nvidia has said, which is basically everything is on fire still.
So they're going to, you know, get comp to all the other names, all the other big hyperscalers, the big tech names, but they're also in software as well. So they're kind of straddling that space up, being heavily involved in AI, being heavily involved in the data center infrastructure build out very closely tied to open AI.
But they're also they also have a very huge data, uh, software business as well. So they're kind of in two worlds right now. One of them is doing pretty well. The AI stuff, the hardware stuff, one of them not so much software stuff. So we'll kind of investors are probably going to expect they're going to say some pretty, pretty aggressive things as far as the AI growth goes.
Everyone else has said it. Their peers have said it. So they'll probably continue. But you know, we'll have to see. I wish I knew.
You mentioned Nvidia. There are, of course, the largest company by market capitalization. Do you think their earnings, which were, you know, strong earnings in Q2. Do you think those have an impact on other tech companies?
They do. Yeah. At least to continue the narrative. Right. They when they came out, one of the big things that they said in their earnings call was they got into 70% revenue growth next year. And so that's an early guide, first of all for them. Second of all, it was 70% growth. So they're still growing insanely, insanely well.
Um, so they are driving that whole narrative. So as long as as long as Nvidia doesn't catch a cold, you know, or doesn't sneeze. The rest of the AI trade probably won't catch a cold. But you know, there are a lot of other stocks involved in this. So it's not just Nvidia, but they are definitely everyone pays attention to what they talk about.
Okay. Erica Sokolow, market strategist at the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for joining us on taking stock.
Always a pleasure. Ashley. Thank you.
