Market Watch: Spending up & so are markets

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A mostly positive day on Wall Street thanks to improvement in the value of the U.S. dollar worldwide along with an increase in financial issues and materials stocks. After last week’s turmoil in the markets over if and when the Fed might raise interest rates again, investors seemed pretty assured that the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee would not decide to lift rates anytime soon over it’s current level of .25 basis points.
Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James said today:

“I think the market is suggesting that the Fed isn’t going to be able to raise rates, and I think the real story is, even if they do raise rates, it will be because the economy is getting better.”

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose 0.3 percent in July, in line with expectations. Personal spending also rose 0.1 percent last month and is up 1.6 percent over the 12 months through July.  Investors are already anxiously looking ahead to the release of Friday’s August jobs report, with speculation of a rate hike next month increasing.

More from CNBC below.

Here are the final numbers from Monday, August 29th, 2016 on Wall Street:

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 18,502.99  (+107.59 / +0.58%)

NASDAQ: 5,232.33 (+13.41 / +0.26%)

S&P 500: 2,180.38  (+11.34/ +0.52%)