Friends
Because of yesterday’s tragedy in Boston, the markets took a back seat, but as we mentioned there was a lot of action especially in gold, which had it largest one day drop in 30 years. Stocks also had a miserable day yesterday, but today bargain hunters did a little shopping and the averages regained about half of what they lost yesterday. The action the last two days will make your head swim, so it’s best just to step back and try to let some of the violent moves play out. Gold tried to recover some of yesterday’s losses, a bit of a dead cat bounce if you will, but gave back most of its early gains by the close.
As it was, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 157 points to finish the day at 14,756. The S&P was up 22 points to close at 1574. Gold was up a meager $12 to trade at $1373 per ounce, while oil was down $.09 to trade at $88.80 per barrel. Oil has dropped dramatically also over the past several trading sessions, which has sent a shiver through the oil industries stocks but has sparked the thoughts that the consumer will be the beneficiary.
Today’s earnings news was mostly positive with the likes of Coca-Cola and Johnson & Johnson providing decent reports, as the consumer staples continue to climb in price despite becoming more and more expensive on an historical basis. We get Bank of America’s earnings tomorrow and Intel’s after the close today. We now start getting into the heart of earnings season, so expect volatility to continue. We’ll keep you informed.
Have a good evening everyone.
