Friends
After an early morning drop, triggered by weakness in Europe, stocks spent the rest of the day fighting to get back into positive territory. Various GDP reports from European countries including disasters from France and Italy, once again verify that the EU is still a drag on global growth. We have seen many company reports over the last few weeks that have indicated that the weakness continues (namely the auto companies) in Europe, but traders seem to believe that ECB President Mario Draghi has the wherewithal to handle any crisis that would emerge.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was only down 9 points to close at 13,973. The S&P 500 was up 1 point to finish the day at 1521. Gold was down $8 to trade at $1636 per ounce, while oil was up $.34 to trade at $97.35 per barrel WTI. Once again, the S&P (a much broader index, of course) seems to be holding in there above resistance levels, while the Dow dances around the 14,000 level.
The weekly jobless claims number was a positive today, as we now seem to be working our way towards 300,000 claims per month as opposed to the 400,000 plus that we saw last year. If we don’t get a wicked jolt from the debt ceiling debate or a possible minimum wage increase, it looks like we are mending the jobs situation a little at a time.
We’ll let you know how the week ends tomorrow. Have a nice evening everyone.
