Friends
Monday started out with a bad case of the blues, as stocks in Europe were showing hefty losses stemming from continued haggling over Greek debt and the apparent lack of any semblance of growth initiatives from the major players (Merkel in Germany continues to stress austerity measures which would likely send Europe into some form of a recession). At home we had decent personal income and personal spending numbers early in the morning, and later we got the Dallas Fed January manufacturing number which was much better than expected. All in all, the economic numbers continue to churn to the positive.
As for stocks, the Dow opened with a more than 100 point loss and spent the balance of the day attempting to crawl back to even. The Dow did get back to even by 2:00 but ran out of gas in the last hour finally posting a small loss of 6 points to close at 12,653. The S&P ended down 3 points to finish the day at 1313. Gold was down $3.70 to trade near $1728 and oil was down $.64 to finish near the $98.92 level. The S&P was able hold the 1300 level throughout the day, which could be a feather in the cap of the bulls. Unfortunately, the bears can point to the continued failure of the bulls to push the S&P through resistance overhead. All of this was on anemic volume, as complacency and boredom seem to be ruling the day lately. The lack of volatility (at least compared to last year) and low volume makes me refer back to an old adage I learned years ago; don’t sell a quiet market.
As earnings get revved up again this week, we’ll see if any excitement can be generated. My guess, seeing what we have seen so far, earnings reports are not likely to move us significantly one way or the other. As I noted last week, both bulls and bears have found fodder in this season’s earnings reports. Perhaps Friday’s jobs report will get the juices flowing. We’ll let you know how the week plays out.
Have a nice evening everyone.
