Two In A Row

Friends

I was going to let you know how stocks soared for a second day in a row. For whatever reason, it’s just good to see stocks going up for a change, as it has been a difficult last few weeks. Well, stocks did go up some, but in the last 20 minutes or so gave up more than half of their gains.  Market participants are focused on the bill that should be coming soon from Congress. Yes, there will be some goofy stuff in it, and there will certainly be much complaining, but in general the markets just wanted to see something get done.

For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 495 points to close at 21,200. The S&P 500 was up 28 points to finish the day at 2,475. Gold was down $16 to trade at $1,644 per ounce, while oil was up $.73 to trade at $24.74 per barrel WTI.

As mentioned, it sure is nice to see stocks go up for more than one day, but I’ll be more at ease when we start moving in hundreds of Dow points per day as opposed to thousands of Dow points per day. Hopefully, the fixed income markets are settling down just a bit, which should help, and as we mentioned earlier in the week, that the liquidation phase that we experienced over the past couple of weeks seems to have mostly plaid itself out.

Now that the Fed and hopefully soon the Congress have stepped up with liquidity and support, market participants will likely direct their attention back to the health part of the equation. Without better news on the health front, these government actions will soon be forgotten. But, let’s take a deep breath and enjoy today’s markets. We’ll continue to take the rest of it day by day. Stay tuned.

Have a nice evening everyone.