I want to bring in our expert.
He knows how to break it down for us best.
Eric Chriscolo, he's market strategist at the New York Stock Exchange.
Eric, happy almost July 4th to you, to you as well, Kris and Happy Friday.
OK, so we had fireworks this week on Wall Street, but not quite today.
When we talk about literally and figuratively, that's because the stock market, of course, ending lower.
What took us down today?
So you know, markets have been powering through higher oil, they've been powering through higher interest rates.
They've been powering through a war in Iran, and so, you know, a pullback just in general is expected, especially with some of these really sharp moves that we saw in some of the tech names over the past several months.
Semiconductors, memory names have just been on a stratospheric rise up.
But also, you know, coming off the Trump-Xi meeting.
You know, nothing really happened in that meeting.
There were no huge advancements in the trade policies, you know, agreements really weren't hashed out.
You know, China said that they wanted the trade to be open, but they didn't really seem to be saying that they would pressure Iran to do it.
So, you know, that kind of left markets with a little bit of like, all right, so what's next?
So I think that's why we saw some of that pullback, why rates went up, why oil.
Went up and why markets or equities finally reacted to that.
So also this week, right, there was a lot going on.
Kevin Warshch confirmed as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and we see bond yields actually rising this week.
Of course that does coincide with some of the inflation data.
What does Kevin Warshch mean for the Fed borrowing costs and thus potentially equities?
I think that unfortunately for you right now that remains to be seen, so I Give you a definitive, but you know we know what his policy or his thoughts have been.
He's said it for years now, you know, basically lower rates, smaller Fed balance sheet.
OK, that's great.
The problem is for him, you know, he has to wrangle the rest of the FOMC committee to get him if that's truly what he wants.
He has to wrangle all the other members to that position and right now there's a growing divergence with members. that actually are saying, you know what, we might actually have to raise rates going forward because inflation is not only staying high, but it might be actually moving up.
So he's going to have to deal with a couple of issues when he finally sits down in that chair role today and see if those policies want to come through.
I will say deal making though still seems palpable, right? the global going public today.
Yesterday it was Blackstone digital infrastructure.
On Wednesday it was global medical response, so the deals do seem to be flowing.
What does that tell us about sentiment and resiliency?
Yes, I mean, equities, S&P is almost at an all-time high, right?
We just came back from 7500, so it slipped a little today, but I mean you are at all-time highs, so you know the ability to raise capital, you know, at these levels, it's there.
The window is still open even with the rates and oil higher, you know, if this continues, then you might start to see a pull.
Back in that or a closure of that window, but you know as of right now, the equity window, the equity capital raising window is still open.
So yes, you should still see activity there.
All right, we'll be watching deals of course standing on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
We're still riding high from the celebration here 50 days out from the 4th of July.
Everyone, and of course the NYSC working in partnership with America 250 for the big celebration this year.
Eric Chriscolo, thanks as always.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you.
Always a pleasure.
