Friends
Good earnings from United Technologies, IBM and Procter &Gamble helped propel stocks to a nearly 300 point Dow rally at the open this morning. But, as the morning wore on stocks gave up all of those gains and actually fell into negative territory. Why did stocks surrender their early gains? The usual suspects, China, Government shutdown bickering, take your pick. However, the bulls gathered themselves and pushed stocks higher as the afternoon wore on.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 171 points to finish the day at 24,575. The S&P 500 was up 5 points to close at 2,638. Gold was down $1 to trade at $1,281 per ounce, while oil was down $.39 to trade at $52.62 per barrel WTI.
This is a fascinating quarter for earnings with so many mixed messages. Numbers seem to be pretty good, but companies are in a very cautious frame of mind, and you can’t blame them. It’s still early, but it appears that share prices were discounting the declining sentiment. At least so far.
Have a nice evening everyone.
