The markets have given up earlier gains .  Financials are recovering from yesterday’s selloff after the Fed’s comments were viewed as less hawkish about the state of future rate hikes, leaving many to believe that there will be only 3 hikes this year.  The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield is up fractionally on the day as well.   It is interesting to note that the greenback is at the same level it was in November 2015 when the Fed began to incrementally raise rates.

Since the election, there has been continual rotation in and out of sectors.  Financials have far outpaced the rest of the sectors.

Today, it’s the Health Care sector that is the laggard. Some of the decline is being spurred from the release of President Trump’s budget blueprint, which proposed reducing the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) spending by $5.8 billion.   Keeping things in perspective though, yesterday, the Health Care sector hit a high not seen since August 2015.

This morning we got initial claims for the week ending March 11 of 241,000 down 2,000 from the prior week. A better gauge, the four week moving average was up 750 to 237,250.

The major indexes are slightly into the red at midday, but the market internals paint a bit more positive picture. NYSE advancers (1443) are slightly outpacing decliners (1403) with 85 stocks making new highs today. The NASDAQ is a bit stronger with advancers coming in at 1380 versus decliners at 1147, and 105 stocks making new highs.