Let's bring in the man himself, Eric Criscuolo, market strategist right here at the New York Stock Exchange. My man, this is the whipsaw action. These are the days you need a neck brace to try and keep up with the way the markets are trading. What did you see on this kind of bizarre tape today as we head into the long holiday weekend?
Yeah, I mean, we came in. Futures sold off hard overnight on, you know, after President Trump spoke to the nation, basically not giving any update that he hadn't said before. The commentary kind of stuck to the script of what he and others in the administration had said. But then, you know, kind of coming into the morning, we kind of saw another maybe off-ramp kind of appear. And that's with Iran looking to maybe work with Oman to reopen the straight. I mean, who knows where that leads. But these little off-ramps, these de-escalation points, this is what the market is telling you they want to see. Because right when that happened, we just ripped higher. We erased pretty much all of that overnight loss. And we traded basically in a line for the rest of the day.
Yeah, we're over a few of these key psychological levels. So as you and I are standing down here, we can take a look up at the big board. West Texas priced over $111, Brent above $108. We do have a little bit of relief in the Dixie because the dollar had been above that psychological level of $100. What are some of the other pressure points that you've noticed have been of top concern to investors, really especially over the last four to five weeks?
Oil, absolutely. And all of the downstream parts of oil, whether it's plastics and all the other supply chain pieces that that feeds into. It was interesting that oil was up sharply today, as you said, but yet the market kind of rallied and was, you know, flattish. So that's kind of interesting. You kind of, you know, one of them might be wrong, right? The oil guys and girls or the equity guys and girls, one of them might be wrong there, but, you know, we're going to have to see. But oil definitely is a pressure point. Yields as well, global yields. Global yields took off, have been much higher for over a month since the war began. This week they kind of came in a little bit, especially in areas like the UK. And so as the yields kind of came in, that just supports equities, generally speaking. So you saw kind of that action help as well.
Yeah, of course. And at least you and I are taking a look here at Treasury performance today. It looks like I'm mid-end of the curve kind of up, but the longer duration instruments are 10-year kind of settling down. It's an interesting day tomorrow. Because the equity markets are closed. Of course, we've got the three-day Easter holiday here. But we do get a really important jobs print. And finally, an updated jobs print. Not one of these ones that comes from many months ago. We're talking the March jobs print. But we don't get to react to it as investors until Monday. Interesting setup. What are you looking for for the print?
If you go by just what the weekly print had, today, the initial jobless claims, excuse me, they were solid. They were just above 200,000, continuing that trend of low hire, low fire. The monthly prints have been up and down. They've been a little erratic. But based on what we've seen coming into it,
Wouldn't be surprised if it was a generally decent print But again, I don't know but you know, it wouldn't shock me either way, but it kind of feels like it'll be an okay print But we'll find out I mean you talk about volatility in the in the broader markets the volatility for the jobs numbers January crushed the cover off the ball February was a negative print and so maybe have a little bit of mean reversion for the March numbers We'll get tomorrow speaking of data points next week the next time I see you We get PCE, the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation, kind of a little rearview mirror looking, but then a pretty updated CPI print. Is there one of those two you think investors are more likely to latch on to more than the other?
Yeah, I think CPI is going to be more important only because it is the March CPI, right? So you're going to have the Iran war in that entire data set, whereas the PCE is going to be February. Very important, that's the Fed's preferred gauge. But it's not it's it's it's backward looking right especially especially backward looking compared to the to the CPI. So I think markets will be more tuned to the CPI print just because it's an updated number.
Eric, before I let you go, we always say earnings are the lifeblood of these markets. But what happens during these wonky weeks when we've wrapped up tech, we've wrapped up retail? We're not quite yet when the big banks and the big financials will report. That's a little later on in April. So for a week like this, is it just listen to what Fed speakers have to say and kind of pick and choose what drives market price action?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously, I ran front and center, right? Oil prices, treasury, global yields, that's going to be the assets to watch. But yeah, very quiet on the earnings front, you could see kind of companies pre announce a little bit, or, you know, maybe get in front of news, companies have been under pressure, maybe they put out their numbers early, you know, saying, hey, everything's actually okay, it's, you know, jump back in the water. So I think you might see some pre announcements, but definitely, The the street are going to be kind of configuring their models trying to figure out where numbers are going to come out Do they start to cut estimates going into the prints do they kind of just hold tight? So you could see some kind of gyrations as far as where the estimates go But generally speaking next week quiet a week after the big financial start reporting and that's been all the economic commentary from those institutions will start to kind of hit and move markets maybe a little more than the macro stuff.
Eric, you did such a great job this week. Take tomorrow off. You've earned it. We all have down here at the New York Stock Exchange.
I'm going to make sure my bosses know that.
There you go. I'll make sure your boss is watching the show. Enjoy your three-day weekend. I'll see you back here on Monday. Thanks for kicking us off as always.
Always a pleasure, JD.
