Friends
With the State of the Union address just hours away, I’ve titled today’s missive the “middle class rally”, as the President is surely going to talk about raising up the middle class in America in tonight’s address. Ok, I’m just having a little fun, but the market did have a nice day with the Dow rising above the 14,000 level once again. After yesterday’s slight downward bias (every Monday has been down this year so far), the bulls were able to grab the momentum back once again.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 47 points to close at 14,018. The S&P 500 was up 2 points to finish the day at 1519. Gold was up $3 to trade at $1652 per ounce, while oil was up $.44 to trade at $97.47 per barrel WTI. Now with the S&P firmly above 1500, and the Dow peaking above 14,000 once again, are new highs to be soon upon us? Something tells me that the bears won’t go down without a fight. But for the moment, the path of least resistance still seems to be up.
On the economic front, we’ll get retail sales and business inventory numbers tomorrow, and of course Thursday brings the weekly jobless claims number. On Friday we get the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. None of these should be major market movers, and with the bulk of earnings season now behind us, it will be interesting to see what market participants focus on over the next few weeks. Stay tuned. We’ll keep you informed.
Have a nice evening everyone.
