Nasdaq Up For The Week, Dow And S&P Down, But Not By Much  Image: Bigstock Stocks closed mixed on Friday with the Dow and the small-cap Russell 2000 in the green, while the S&P and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were in the red. For the week, only the Nasdaq finished in the green. But the others all came within a half of a percentage point of doing the same. Since everybody was talking about cryptocurrencies last week, let me add that they were down across the board on Friday, and sharply lower for the week. Reports that China is calling for a crackdown on bitcoin mining, and is also looking at tighter regulation on cryptos, weighed on prices. Same goes for the U.S. Treasury, which is looking for crypto transactions of $10K or greater to be reported to the IRS, the same way that cash transactions of that size are reported. On the upside, it's an acknowledgement that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. And it will be interesting to see how the digital asset market, which has essentially been free from regulation, evolves as governments and institutions start imposing new controls. Some may bristle at these developments. But you could also look at it as a way of conveying legitimacy into this space as well. (Your average investor at this time, is not likely to put their retirement funds that they'll need to live on, into a highly volatile and unregulated market just yet. But maybe one day, that could change.) In other news, the White House said they were open to reducing their infrastructure proposal from $2.25 trillion to $1.7 trillion. Whether that wins enough votes to pass, we shall see. Either way, anything in that ballpark is still a lot of money that will go into the economy. It also means we may not need to raise as much money to pay for it. The reduced price tag is still an enormous amount of money. But the $550 billion in savings isn't chump change either. We all know taxes are going up. But maybe not so much now. We got Existing Home Sales on Friday, and they came in at 5.850 million units (annualized) vs. last month's 6.010M and views for 6.085M. On a month over month basis, that's down -2.7%. But on a year over year basis, it's up a whopping 33.9%. We also got the Purchasing Managers' Index Composite Flash report, and that came in at 68.1. The Manufacturing Index was 61.5 vs. last month's 60.5 and views for the same, while the Services Index was 70.1 vs. last month's 64.7 and views for 64.5. The economic rebound continues to gain. And as more of the country opens up, and the world for that matter, the more economic growth will be seen. These are exciting times for both the economy and the market. And it looks like there's a lot more upside to go. So make sure you're taking full advantage of it. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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