Friends
It’s been a crazy 24 hours. Not long after the close of trading yesterday, rumors began to surface that an attack on American targets in Iraq had begun. After a couple of seemingly false reports, by early evening a missile attack was, indeed, taking place and futures markets were reacting as one would expect. Stock futures tumbled, while oil and gold rose. By now, you are all aware of what happened, or didn’t happen, in the attack, but by the open this morning stocks were already poised to post modest gains. After the President’s statement, which added to the Iranian foreign minister’s statement, had a de-escalated effect on the situation, stocks moved more decisively to the upside. Things did cool a bit into the close when, yet again, reports of explosions in the Green Zone in Iraq surfaced (so we’ll see), but it’s mind boggling to think that stocks were up after rockets had flown just the night before.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 161 points to finish the day at 28,745. The S&P 500 was up 15 points to close at 3,253. Gold was down $14 to trade at $1,560 per ounce, while oil was down $2.36 to trade at $60.34 per barrel WTI.
