Friends,
I hope most of you have enjoyed a nice Columbus Day of not having to work. Even though the bond market and banks are closed, the stock market was open for business and it was like the children got to play while the adults (the bond market) were away. Stocks were buoyed by a report that Sarkozy and Merkel had indicated that by the end of the month they would have a plan to deal with the troubled banks. No details, but market participants seemed to be happy that they are acknowledging the problem.
Stocks began the day to the upside and held most of the gains to finish with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 329 points (1000 points in the last 5 trading sessions). The S&P 500 was up more than 39 points to close at 1194. Of course, all of this was on pretty light volume. The fascinating thing is that from the lows of last Tuesday morning, the S&P 500 has risen more than 11%. That is just amazing in just one week. It will be interesting to see if the bulls can get above 1200 on the S&P. Earnings season starts tomorrow.
Gold had a nice day rising about $42, and oil was up more than $2 to again close above $85 per barrel. With the bond market back trading tomorrow, it will be interesting to see if we can follow through on all this momentum.
We will be sending out our 4th quarter outlook tomorrow and, of course, you will receive a hard copy along with your summary statement that will be going out this week.
Have a nice evening everyone.
