Friends
Wow! The bulls came over the wall and the bears ran for the hills. Today’s trading session was one where just about anything worked. Well, not if one was short, but on the long side everything seemed to participate in today’s rally. There was no real economic news to spark today’s price action (both ISM and PMI Manufacturing Index numbers were weak). Yes, Ford had good sales, but autos sold well last year too, and their share prices suffered mightily anyway. Today was a classic beginning of the month type rally, so we’ll have to see if the rally has any legs as the week plays out.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 348 points to finish the day at 16,865. The S&P 500 was up 46 points to close at 1978. Gold was up a fraction to trade at $1234 per ounce, while oil was up $.59 to trade at $34.34 per barrel WTI.
We’ll get the ADP employment number tomorrow and of course the non-farm payroll on Friday. Every time the stock market catches its breath, market participants turn their attention to the Fed, and whether we’ll see additional rate hikes sooner than later. If data dependent means measuring the price of the S&P, then perhaps Fed watchers could worry about rate hikes in the near future. If data dependent means what it is supposed to mean, recent measures of the economy would imply that the Fed might just be on hold for a while.
Let’s see if the bulls can build on today’s rally. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
