Friends
As the never ending list of negative pundits endeavor to explain just what is going on in the stock market since Friday morning, stocks just keep pushing higher (as measured by the Dow, stocks have climbed more than 750 points since the Friday morning low). Is it, that with Friday’s lousy jobs report, the odds of the Fed raising rates any time soon has dramatically diminished (bad news is good news, once again)? Is it that the stock market, being a leading indicator, is predicting a better economy six months from now? Or perhaps, as we mentioned Friday, we are veering back towards the TINA environment, where there really are no alternatives to stocks should one want to grow one’s money (considering that interest rates have been at zero seemingly forever).
As for today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 304 points to close at 16,776. The S&P 500 was up 35 points to close at 1987. Gold was down $2 to trade at $1134 per ounce, while oil was up $.86 to trade at $46.40 per barrel WTI.
While market participants scratch their head over this fast sharp rally, it is time to turn our focus to earnings season. In a word, expectations could hardly be lower. If the likelihood of a rate hike has diminished for the time being, perhaps the softening of the U. S. dollar will make multinational company’s shares more attractive. Let’s see if the bulls can keep this train rolling into earnings season.
