Friends
Well, we got a deal in Greece (just delays the inevitable for a little while longer) yet traders seemed somewhat uninspired as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, having taken out 13,000 earlier in the session, ended the day only slightly positive. For the day the Dow average finished up 15 points to close at 12,965. The S&P 500 was up 1 point to finish the day at 1362. Gold was up $35 to close near $1760, and oil rose again finishing the day up $2.53 to trade near the $106.13 level (yikes). A continued jump in oil prices would not be good for the difficult recovery that we find ourselves in.
We seem to find ourselves in a tug of war between the bulls and the bears. The bulls need to get above 1370 on the S&P and hold it, while the bears hope that we sell the “good” news out of Greece and begin to give back the gains we have hammered out since late last year. We are getting earnings from retailers this week with today’s miss by Wal-Mart and a nice beat by Macy’s. As the week progresses we may get a better feel as to what the consumer has been up to, but in the meantime we will get weekly jobless claims on Thursday and consumer sentiment on Friday. Other than that, it will be a somewhat quiet week on the economic news front.
