Friends
Stocks were already enjoying a good morning when a report surfaced that perhaps German Chancellor Angela Merkel might be willing to play nice with Greece and let them gradually adhere to the conditions that Eurozone members want instituted. The result was a somewhat light volume spike in share prices and the first real strong day for the bulls in quite some time. For the moment, the aforementioned jittery market seems to have lost the jitters.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 236 points to finish at 18,000. The S&P 500 was up 25 points to close at 2105. Gold was up $8 to trade at $1185 per ounce, while oil was up $1.09 to trade at $61.23 per barrel WTI. It’s worth keeping an eye on the 10 year Treasury Note, which closed today at a yield of 2.48%. Remember, the 10 year Note was at 1.60% just this past February. We’ll talk more about this as we go forward.
Today’s sharp rally came somewhat out of the blue, as we had not seen much indication that market participants were very interested in getting involved in recent trading sessions. Now of course, we’ll see if today’s move has any staying power or will we be once again referring to the amnesia market by tomorrow afternoon? Regardless, the bulls won the day and for the moment hold the high ground. We’ll see if tomorrow’s weekly jobless claims number continues to show a positive trend, but the retail sales number might be the last important data point before the focus turns to next week’s FOMC meeting. In the meantime let’s see how the rest of the week plays out.
Have a nice evening everyone.
