Friends
Once again it was a volatile day for stocks, but today the bulls were able to emerge with the victory. Stocks spent time in both positive and negative territory once again, and despite lower oil prices, energy shares provided much of the upside in the market indexes.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 82 points to finish the day at 17,574 (after being up nearly 200 points midday). The S&P 500 was up 4 points to close at 2052. Gold was down $5 to trade at $1071 per ounce, while oil was down $.61 to trade at $36.55 per barrel WTI.
It has been really difficult to attach any real meaning to this week’s volatility, other than traders seem to have been focusing on the price of oil as the trigger for much of the crazy action. Let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow as we head in to the FOMC meeting next week. It would appear that the markets are stable enough (relatively speaking, of course) to allow the Fed to begin the tightening process (raise rates). Of course, we might have thought that back a couple of months ago too.
Have a nice evening everyone.
