Friends
Things were a lot calmer today in the markets. Sure, we had some seesawing up and down, but for the most part it was a calm drift to nowhere. Pessimism for stocks appears to be growing as we move our way through the first week of trading for the year, and the bears do have a pretty convincing case. Stocks aren’t cheap, given the earnings weakness in 2015, the domestic economy seems lackluster at best, the Fed is no longer adding liquidity to fuel stock prices, and globally things seem to be getting worse (see China). Yes, the bulls have their work cut out for them, but I wouldn’t count them out just yet. Of course, any short term stock price movements mean absolutely nothing to investors attempting to achieve long term goals.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 9 points to finish the day at 17,158. The S&P 500 was up 4 points to close at 2016. Gold was up $2 to trade at $1077 per ounce, while oil was down $.88 to trade at $35.88 per barrel WTI.
At least things calmed down a bit after yesterday’s turmoil. As we look forward, we have a jobs number on Friday and then we will be entering earnings season for the fourth quarter (expectations are not high), over the next several weeks. Let’s see if things can remain calm for the remainder of the week, or will some volatility reappear? Stay tuned- we’ll keep you informed.
Have a nice evening everyone.
