Market Direction Weekly Closing Numbers

The economy

The last week of April was busy on all fronts. Investors received a heavy batch of economic data and earnings, but it was two central bank meetings that stole the attention. On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee held the fed funds rate unchanged between 0.25% and 0.50%. Going into the meeting, the market believed that the statement could begin setting the stage for a rate hike in June, but the FOMC Statement was dovish and contained no hints of an impending rate hike. Stocks wobbled immediately after the announcement, but rallied into the afternoon.

The Bank of Japan followed the Fed, releasing its policy statement late Wednesday evening. The central bank made no changes to its interest rate, but did announce a JPY300 billion, 0%, lending facility for companies affected by the Kumamoto earthquake. The yen surged on the news, dropping the dollar/yen pair into the neighborhood of this year's low near 108.00. The sharp rally in the yen proved that the market expected the Bank of Japan to step up its easing efforts, but the central bank did not deliver. The yen spent Thursday near its overnight high and the risk-off sentiment filtered through to the equity market while the yen continued its climb into Friday.

Stocks stumbled on Thursday afternoon with Apple (AAPL) receiving a lot of attention after Carl Icahn revealed that he closed his position in the stock. Earlier in the week, the company reported disappointing results for the second quarter, showing a 13.0% year-over-year decline in revenue. In other tech earnings, Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) missed bottom-line estimates while Facebook (FB) beat expectations.

The technology sector was the weakest performer during the last week of April (-3.6%), which put the largest sector by weight at the bottom of the monthly leaderboard (-5.5%). On the flip side, energy and materials outperformed, posting respective April gains of 8.7% and 4.9%.

$tockMarketDirection proprietary model is currently sign-up and subscribe. We strongly encourage you to monitor positions closely, exercise proper money management strategies and follow us at $tockMarketDirection for ALERTS we may issue advising a change in the current market direction. Stay tuned and follow us. If you have a testimonial or comment of how this website has helped you we would like to know, write us. Share with a friend.

By the numbers the weekly closing index numbers compared to the initial sign-up and subscribe recommendation closing numbers: 

Stock Market Closing Numbers
compared to Recommendation Numbers
	?/?/?	?/?/?	Variance
Dow Jones	?	?	?
Nasdaq	?	?	?
S&P 500	?	?	?

Register at: http://www.stockmarket-direction.com/