The stock market has been under pressure today, policymaking being the catalyst after some remarks from President-elect Trump over the weekend created concerns that the implementation of pro-growth policies after his inauguration may not go as smoothly as the market had envisioned in its post-election rally effort. (Shocking I know) Donny seems to have talked himself into a corner with all the border tax stuff as well which appears to be more difficult to implement than he suggested to his electorate in the Rust Belt.
The biggest driver of today's weakness, though, is the underperformance of the heavily-weighted financial sector (-2.3%). It has fallen victim broad-based profit-taking activity.
Morgan Stanley's ( better-than-expected earnings report followed by profit taking being the catalyst in the financials today. The inability to sustain an advance on good earnings news has created the apparent belief that the post-election rally by the financial sector has ran out of steam, for now.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo , all of which traded higher after their earnings reports on Friday, have rolled over sharply today in a blizzard of profit taking.
Joining the sell-off have been Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, both of which are slated to report their results before the open on Wednesday.
Those that were touting the success of the financials and who have made easy money hand over fist the last few months will now have to potentially rethink their "no brainer" strategy.
It will be interesting to see how the markets react to both Citigroup and Goldman Sachs tomorrow. The financial's last near term bated breath hinges on what these two megabanks have to say, for now.
$GS and $C Into Earnings.
