Stocks had a dynamite finish to last Friday’s session, and they’re adding to those gains here on Monday, too. Gold and silver are mixed, while crude oil is popping. Treasures are lower, while the dollar is flat.
On the news front...
The markets aren’t sold on Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell’s plan to keep interest rates high for a long time. In fact, short-term rate traders were recently betting Powell may be forced to CUT rates again as soon as July or September. Stabilization in regional bank stocks on Friday and stronger-than-expected jobs data helped temper some of those bets. But they aren’t going away entirely.
“Big Oil” might as well be called “Big Dividends/Big Buybacks”, at least according to this Wall Street Journal story. The piece talks about how energy giants like Royal Dutch Shell (SHEL), TotalEnergies (TTE), and Exxon Mobil (XOM) are awash in more than $160 billion in cash – and unlike in the past, they aren’t just throwing that money into exploration and production budgets. They’re showering a large chunk of the cash on shareholders.
Things aren’t going so well at Tyson Foods (TSN), though. The beef, pork, and chicken producer missed analyst estimates by a country mile in the fiscal second quarter. It also slashed its 2023 sales outlook, saying the “current protein market is challenging.”
Finally, if you’ve ever gotten stranded at the airport and been forced to cover expenses for food and lodging, you know how frustrating it can be. In the future, it might be a little less so due to new Department of Transportation rules. The DOT is pushing airlines to provide more compensation when “controllable” cancellations or delays pop up.
