Friends
I wanted to take some time this week to wrap up 2015, but today’s stock market actions dictates that we leave 2015 behind (we’ll go into detail in the quarterly outlook which will be coming soon), and get right into the action of 2016. News of a collapse in Chinese shares overnight and the cold war developing between Saudi Arabia and Iran sent stock futures into a free fall before trading began. At the opening the Dow tacked on a 300 point loss and extended that to about 450 points by late morning. As the afternoon wore on, the sellers exhausted themselves and stocks did recover some, at least avoiding what was shaping up to be the worst first day of trading for a new year in a very long time.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 276 points to finish the day at 17,148. The S&P 500 was down 31 points to close at 2012. Gold was up $14 to trade at $1074 per ounce, while oil couldn’t even benefit from turmoil in the Middle East as WTI was down $.19 to trade at $36.85 per barrel.
Well, we had a lousy close last Thursday, the last trading day of 2015, and an even worse beginning to 2016. Remember, just a handful of stocks kept 2015 from being much worse, and it appeared that profit taking was at hand in those chosen few names today. Now, of course, one day of trading doesn’t make a year, and a case could be made that today was just an extension of what went on underneath the surface all of last year. Buckle up, this could be an interesting week of trading.
Have a nice evening everyone.
