Friends,
Stocks finished an up and down day to the upside with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 85 points for the day to comfortably close back above the 12,000 mark at 12,068. The S&P 500 was up 7.89 points to finish at the 1,261 level. Gold was up more than $7 to close just under $1,800 per ounce. Oil continued its disturbing climb (I thought we were supposed to see demand destruction that would lower prices) with a gain of $1.66 to close right at $96 per barrel WTI.
The biggest story of the morning was a rumor that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was stepping down. Italian stocks quickly rallied only to be disappointed when the Prime Minister indicated on his Facebook page that the rumors were not true and that he was not stepping down. That’s right, he let us all know on his Facebook page. You can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, after the European markets closed, U. S. stocks began to climb from down almost 100 points to finish in the black. All in all, it was a light volume move, but at least it was a nice reversal from down to up. We also liked seeing the S&P get back above 1,257 to the 1,260 area. If we can hold this, perhaps we can put together a nice week.
We’ll let you know how the week unfolds. Have a nice evening everyone.
