Friends
Stocks endured another roller coaster ride today, as an early morning sell-off was followed by an afternoon rally. The sell-off was triggered when ECB President Mario Draghi failed to deliver the goods, as he held steady on interest rates and really didn’t add any punch to the European punch bowl. European markets took a late afternoon plunge adding to the anxiety in our markets sending the Dow to a 130 point drop. But, as mentioned, stocks recovered as the day wore on and by the close the bulls had erased just about all of the earlier losses.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3 points to close at 16,801. The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged to finish the day at 1946. Gold was down $1 to trade at $1214 per ounce, while oil was up $.54 to trade at $91.27 per barrel WTI.
Volatility has surely returned, which should not be too surprising given the calmness we have had for the past couple of years. Tomorrow morning we get the non-farm payroll number. It should be an interesting close to an interesting week.
Have a nice evening everyone.
