Friends
As traders waited for European leaders to finish dinner and come out and tell us how they are going to save Greece and the Eurozone, stocks sold off hard all day long with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down nearly 200 points by midday. But as the last hour of trading unfolded, traders were emboldened (or frightened if they were short) by some of the comments made by Italian and French leaders, and stocks rallied to wipe out all of the day’s losses.
At the close, the Dow was down just 6 points to finish the day at 12,496. The S&P, after being well below 1300 intraday, finished up 2 points to close at 1318. Gold was down $16.80 to trade at $1559 per ounce, and oil was down $1.35 to trade at $90.50. With oil and other commodities falling out of bed and the dollar rising, one would think that Main Street should be the beneficiary, even if Wall Street suffers from the “risk off” mentality every time the dollar ticks up.
Once again, we are held hostage by what happens to Greece and the rest of Europe. Though no one seems to care, for the second day in a row we got good news on the housing market. An uptick in housing is just what the doctor ordered and could pave the way for better domestic economic activity. Unfortunately on a day to day basis, the global macro overwhelms everything else. Hey, at least I didn’t mention Facebook today.
Have a nice evening everyone.
