Friends
Traders spent most of the morning fretting over a weak close in European stocks, particularly in Spain and Italy. By mid-morning, the Dow was experiencing a nearly 100 point down move. The weekly unemployment claim number was still in the 350,000 area (no real improvement) which was slightly disappointing, and we got the final look at 4th quarter 2011 GDP which remained at 3%. The other major concern weighing on the market was the China PMI number which we will get over the weekend.
By the afternoon, the market was contemplating the possibility that the reality in China might be- good news should be good news, or bad news might be good news- as the Chinese might ease rates to stimulate if the number is weak (they are wannabe capitalist dressed as communist as you know, and they have been watching Dr. Bernanke).
In the last couple of hours of trading, stocks rallied, and for the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 19 points to close at 13,145. The S&P 500 was slightly down finishing the day off 2 points to close at 1403. Gold was up $2.20 to trade near $1660 per ounce and oil was down over $2.00 to finish near 103.21 per barrel WTI.
Tomorrow is the last day of the quarter, and it would be nice to see the S&P close above that 1400 level and the Dow trade safely above 13,000. It looks like it will end up being the second good quarter in a row for stocks. I won’t jinx it. Let’s see how we finish things tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
