Friends
Though somewhat sloppy, the markets did build on yesterday’s nice move as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 32 points to finish the day at 11,555. The S&P 500 was up 2.65 points to close at 1195. Gold was up $4 to finish the day at $1715 and oil was up $1.55, once again challenging the $100 level.
The day began with a “successful” Italian bond auction in the sense that they got the bonds sold, just at a much higher yield than a month ago. I guess just getting them sold is a moral victory nowadays. On the domestic front, the Case/ Schiller numbers showed that residential real estate is still struggling (not a real surprise at this point), but the consumer confidence number was a lot better than expected, with a reading of 56 vs. the 44 number that analysts had expected and the 40.9 number we got last month (the higher the number the better). Again, other than housing, the domestic economy, while not vibrant, is certainly better than we thought might be the case just a couple of months ago.
On a technical basis, we got above 1200 on the S&P for a while today, but could not hold that level. The NASDAQ was weak today, which weighed on the other averages. As we pointed out yesterday, we need to get through the 1205 area before we can get too excited about a year-end rally. We’ll see how the rest of the week plays out, as once again, we have a lot of economic numbers to chew on the next few days.
Have a nice evening everyone.
