Friends
It was quite a nice start to the second quarter for the bulls as stocks rallied at the open and added to those gains as the trading session wore on. The rally was broad based with financials and industrials joining the party along with technology shares. Staples and other interest rate sensitive shares took a breather today as longer term rates ticked up a bit. All in all, the bulls seem to firmly hold the high ground as we move into the second quarter. Of course, the upcoming earnings season will begin to separate the men from the boys. Though we are going into this earnings season with muted expectations, rising share prices would actually make stocks more vulnerable to inferior earnings releases.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 329 points to finish the day at 26,258. The S&P 500 was up 32 points to close at 2,867. Gold was down $5 to trade at $1,293 per ounce, while oil was up $1.50 to trade at $61.64 per barrel WTI.
It is a busy week for economic data including today’s retail sales number that was not good. Surprisingly, though, January’s lousy number was revised quite nicely higher. The ISM manufacturing number was actually pretty good. We’ll see durable goods tomorrow and ADP private payrolls, and ISM non-manufacturing on Wednesday. Then, on Friday, we get the all-important non-farm payroll number. Remember, last month’s jobs number was way less than expected, so this week’s number will be extremely interesting. Early estimates are for about 177,000 new jobs were created in March. Stay tuned, it’s going to be a busy week.
Have a nice evening everyone.
