U.S. stocks traded modestly lower Monday at the start of a week that will see the unofficial start of first-quarter earnings, headlined by some of the nation’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, -0.04% and Goldman Sachs Group GS, +0.20%.
What’s driving the market? On Sunday, Powell said that the economy is going to start growing strongly in the second half of the year, but emphasized that that rebound shouldn’t lead anyone to believe that the central bank would dial up interest rates in 2021. So far, Fed officials have said they expect a rise in inflation to be transitory and have repeatedly stated that they would be focused on ensuring that the labor market makes a full recovery before considering easing policy.
“We’ve had a very gradual, but steady, low-volatility move to new highs,” Lerner said in an interview. “I still think the primary market trend is higher, but as we head into earnings, I suspect we start trading a little more rangebound. When the primary trend is higher, you don’t want to worry about the hiccups.”
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