Friends
Pessimism reigns supreme. Stocks tumbled once again today, as negative sentiment continues to permeate the market, despite the fact that the leading economic indicators number was actually better than expected. The bears had the upper hand from the opening bell and despite a few feeble rally attempts by the bulls, stocks continue to fall towards bear market territory (for the record, we already have acknowledged that we are in a bear market, no matter how things are “officially” measured).
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 464 points to close at 22,859. The S&P 500 was down 39 points to finish the day at 2.467. Gold was up $7 to trade at $1,264 per ounce, while oil was down $2.01 to trade at $46.16 per barrel WTI.
The business media are letting you know that, so far, this is the worst December for stocks since the Great Depression. The market averages that were sporting high single digit gains at the end of the 3rd quarter, are now deeply into the red. The S&P 500 is suffering an 8% decline YTD (not counting dividends) at the moment, which represents about 17% off the all-time/year highs. We scratched our heads wondering why stocks had such a good 3rd quarter, and now we wonder if stocks should be suffering such a bad 4th quarter. It’s been an odd year, to say the least. What might have been unwarranted optimism has now turned into what might be unwarranted pessimism. Let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
