Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The equity market dropped a little in response to the preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment for March, which dropped to 57.9 (Briefing.com consensus 65.6) from the final reading of 64.7 for February, marking the third straight drop in sentiment. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 79.4.

The key takeaway from the report is that the weakening in sentiment cut across groups by age, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions, with inflation concerns and policy uncertainty jumping out as key factors for the drop in sentiment.

Stocks still maintain solid gains. The market-cap weighted S&P 500 and the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP), which uses each of the 500 components as equal in weight, trade 1.0% higher.