It was a muted Tuesday for markets. Yesterday's trading volume was one of the lowest of 2023, according to BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky.
Indeed, the S&P 500, an index of the 500 largest companies listed on U.S. exchanges, was essentially flat. Investors didn't want to make any big moves before the consumer and producer price indexes come out later today and tomorrow, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.29%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.43%.
That's not to say there weren't notable movements in individual stocks. CarMax, for example, popped 9.64% after the used car seller soundly beat earnings expectations for its fiscal fourth quarter. Airline stocks, too, rose after Boeing reported it delivered 64 planes in March, the most since December.
But those increases were more than counterbalanced by losses in tech, which explains why the broader S&P ended flat while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was in the red. Microsoft fell 2.27%, Amazon slid 2.2% and Nvidia lost 1.49% yesterday — though it's still up 89.79% this year. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund slid 0.94%.
"It kind of feels like the calm before the storm," said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at the Carson Group.
While it's nice to have a calm day or two, investors shouldn't ignore the warning of an impending storm. If the IMF's predictions are anything to go by, the global economy is more unstable than markets are assuming. But all investors can do now is to wait for inflation data and earnings reports from big banks this week. The lack of activity in markets is motivated more by trepidation than calm.
