Friends
After last week’s more than 2% drop in the stock market, fueled by more “lukewarm” earnings reports, stocks opened to the downside again today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 90 points in early trading. But as the day wore on, shares of companies that reported some of these disappointing earnings started to climb back into positive territory, and the overall averages found some buying support. Dow component Caterpillar was an interesting example, as the shares of the company had traded poorly all last week before earnings were to be released (the shares actually have traded poorly for months as the global growth story has been in question). But after reporting a somewhat negative outlook for the coming months, the shares began to trade up and ended the day with a nice gain. A good example of the bad news was built into the price as the stock had traded down before earnings. Because it did not drop at the open, the shorts (those betting it would drop further) actually scrambled to cover and bid the shares higher.
As for the rest of the market, the Dow was up 19 points for the day, to close at 14,567. The S&P 500 was up 7 points to finish the day at 1562. Gold continued to bounce back some as the precious metal was up $29 to trade at $1424 per ounce, while oil was up $.80 to trade at $88.76 per barrel WTI. All of a sudden, the S&P seems to be in a trading range with 1570 being resistance and 1540 being support.
Yes, last week was difficult for everyone in America as we were forced to witness pure evil on display in Boston, and here in Texas a horrific accident. Hopefully, we’ll settle into a little more normalcy this week. We’ll continue to keep you informed as earnings season unfolds.
Have a nice evening everyone.
