Friends
Buyers of stocks got an early start to the Memorial Day holiday. As we suspected, participation was very light today and of course that allows markets to be pushed around rather easily. Add to that, that we are on a Greece death watch, and traders decided that they did not want to buy stocks today. We did get a surprisingly strong University of Michigan consumer sentiment number (the best we have seen since October of 2007!) this morning, but it had little effect on the mood of traders as the day wore on.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 75 points to close at 12,454. The S&P 500 was down 3 points to finish the day at 1317. Gold was up $14 to trade at $1571 per ounce and oil was up a fraction to close near $90.86 per barrel WTI.
Rest up over the next 3 days, because next week will be full of economic news, not the least of which is the employment number next Friday. In addition to Friday’s employment number, we get the ADP private sector job number on Thursday as well as our second look at 1st quarter GDP. Of course, we will deal with Greece and the Eurozone on a daily basis (what else is new?), so even though it will be a short 4 day week, it will be news driven.
Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day Weekend as we celebrate those who serve and have served. Remember, markets are closed on Monday, so we’ll check in with you next Tuesday.
