Friends
The earnings season is beginning to takes its toll on many individual issues (see IBM today, for instance), but the market averages continue to hang tough. That’s right, despite the somewhat “shaky” earnings reports we have seen so far, the market in general seems to hanging in there, at least for the moment. We’ll see if the weight of the likes of IBM and Walmart will finally be too much to the market to bear.
As for today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 13 points to close at 17,217. The S&P 500 was down 2 points to finish the day at 2030. Gold was up $4 to trade at $1177 per ounce, while oil was down $.34 to trade at $45.84 per barrel WTI.
On the economic front the housing starts number came in somewhat hot, fueled by a spike in multi-family units, but that was somewhat offset by a decline in permits. Again, as has been the case lately, a mixed message. The earnings season roller coaster is upon us. We’ll keep you up to date with it all.
Have a nice evening everyone.
