Friends
With the help of an earnings season that is turning out to be better than bad, stocks rallied again today, as the bulls attempt to erase the memories of the first couple of weeks of October. So far, with about half the returns in, the corporate earnings scoreboard shows that about 73% of companies have beat analyst’s estimates. As we have noted in quarters past, the quality of earnings can be questioned, but nevertheless, a beat is a beat.
As for stocks, the rally continues with the Dow Jones Industrials sporting a gain of 187 points to close at 17,005. The S&P 500 was up 23 points to finish the day at 1985. Gold was down $1 to trade at $1228 per ounce, while oil was up $.45 (remember, yesterday we said that stocks would prefer oil stop going down) to trade at $81.42 per barrel WTI.
On the economic front, the picture actually is not as bright as we would like to see, as today’s lousy durable goods number was just another in a line of disappointments lately. The Case-Shiller Housing Price Index showed contraction for the fourth month in a row. Indeed, the only good news was Consumer Confidence which came in surprisingly strong. We get the FOMC statement tomorrow, and Ms. Yellen has a speech scheduled for Thursday. We knew this was going to be a busy week. So far the bulls are the ones having fun.
Have a nice evening everyone.
