Market Memo

This week was a mess from the jump. Markets opened rough as the S&P fell 2.12%, Nasdaq dropped 3.23%, and the Dow slid 0.90%, with both the Nasdaq and Dow hitting correction territory mostly because of oil prices spiking and the Strait of Hormuz closure from the Iran conflict pushing inflation expectations up nearly 1%. Then Tuesday came around and the Dow jumped 1,125 points, S&P up 2.9%, Nasdaq up 3.8%, which looked great until you realized it was just dead cat bounce territory, classic end-of-Q1 repositioning with some optimism about de-escalation talks sprinkled in. Like a team down 3-0 scoring twice late to make the scoreline look respectable, the result was already decided. Friday’s jobs report was the one genuinely good thing all week, with 178,000 nonfarm payrolls added after February’s revised loss of 133,000 and unemployment ticking down to 4.3%. Wage growth held steady at 3.5% year over year though, which kept the Fed from getting too excited, and the 10-year Treasury closed at 4.43% as markets kept wrestling with that same tension between energy-driven inflation and a Fed that really doesn’t want to move too fast.