Charts seem to indicate that Wall Street was upbeat in the morning but remained subdued into the close. It appears as if all indices were upbeat about the progress made by the new spending bill that is expected to address inflation, climate change etc. but perhaps gave up gains after Nvidia issued warning based on its prelimiunary quarterly results. Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly results over the weekend might have also been a cause for optimism as its operating earning rose (even as BRK-A/B saw supply chain and inflation issues). The headlines of their results reported a huge loss (> $42B) but I think that is related to how accounting rules related to net earnings when there is a huge investment component in the results. Essentially, the unrealized loss gets reported and that perhaps reflects the stock performance of large long-term stock holdings of BRK-A/B (such as Bank of America, American Express, Apple etc.) in the quarter that was reported. I think this kind of report was also seen during the pandemic selloff where they had reported a similar loss but ended the year in significant profit. If the stock performance improves then I would think BRK-A/B's net earnings will improve as well. In any case, the operating results seemed to indicate to me that economy continues to be in good shape. We should gain some insight on Wednesday when CPI data comes out.
On the SPOT blog (08/08/2022) [C..]
Updated: Aug 30, 2022