Friends
I hope you got our earlier email today with our quarterly report. If not let me know and we’ll get it to you. As for today, well let’s just say there never is a dull moment. We woke up this morning to the news that the Swiss National Bank decided to rescind the 3 year old agreement it had to keep its currency pegged to the euro at 1.20 per Euro. They had been pegging the currency to stabilize it, as money had been piling into Swiss Francs every time the euro came under pressure. Immediately Swiss stocks tanked while the currency jumped 30% in value before settling back to a 15% increase. All this was quite a surprise and perhaps a defensive play before next week’s possible move by the ECB.
This, combined with more earnings disappointments from money center banks, and a lousy weekly jobless claims number sent stocks lower at the open. Then when oil rallied to $50 per barrel WTI later in the morning stocks rallied into positive territory. But once again, oil rolled over and stocks fell back into negative territory. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 104 points to finish the day at 17,322. The S&P 500 was down 18 points to close at 1992. Gold was up $22 to trade at $1257 per ounce, while oil was down $2.20 to trade at $46.28 per barrel WTI.
This has been quite a week. Let’s see how things finish out tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
