Friends
There were a lot of things for the markets to deal with today. First and foremost, there is a rather large hurricane bearing down on the east coast of the United States that looks like it will make landfall this weekend. There could be a lot of damage and power outages if the storm gets into cities such as New York. We will be here bright and early on Monday and let you know how the markets might be affected.
In other news, Apple CEO Steve Jobs stepped down for health reasons which opened many questions as to how the company will fare without its fabulous leader in the years ahead. Apple stock fell in early trading but recovered to end the day down only $2.50. The other big news of the day was the $5 billion investment that Warren Buffett made in Bank of America. Early in the day, traders saw the deal as a vote of confidence from America’s most famous investor and bank stocks enjoyed an early rally. By the end of trading, though, bank shares sank with the rest of the market.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average got off to a nice start at the open of trading, but spent the rest of the day losing ground closing at 11,149 – down 170 points for the day. The S&P 500 finished trading down 18 points to close at 1159. The market’s reversal this morning was attributed mainly to continued worries about the situation in Europe, where the German stock market fell late in its trading day. Gold, after continuing yesterday’s fall in the morning, reversed to end the day higher at $1772 per ounce.
Well, tomorrow is the big day where we get Fed Chairman Bernanke’s speech at Jackson Hole. It looks like traders wanted to take some profits from the past few day’s gains as they wait for Dr. Bernanke’s speech. We’ll be listening and report to you tomorrow how the markets react.
Have a nice evening everyone.
