Friends
Stocks were quietly trying to digest yesterday’s gains in the first half hour of trading, when at 9:00 we got a solid existing home sales report. The bulls jumped on the good news and drove stocks nicely into positive territory. But after hanging on to a nice 50 point Dow gain for most of the day, stocks sold off in the last hour, as reports of Greece possibly leaving the Eurozone hit the news wires. What a shock that Greece would have a negative effect on stocks. At this point, just the mention of the word “Greece” causes a reflex in traders that forces them to hit the sell button. With 15 minutes left in the trading day stocks had fallen about 50 Dow points.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down less than 2 points to finish the day at 12502. The S&P 500 was mostly unchanged to close at 1316. Gold was down nearly $20 to trade near $1562 per ounce, and oil was down about $1.50 to trade near $91.37 per barrel WTI.
Of course, the continuing fiasco that is the Facebook IPO continues to do wonders for investor sentiment. The total botching of the deal by Morgan Stanley and NASDAQ (the stock was down another 9% today) sure isn’t helping build investor confidence in the system. This market has taken one blow after another and is still breathing. From the daily dose of European worries, to JP Morgan’s unexpected trading bombshell, to the disastrous Facebook IPO, this market has absorbed a beating that Mike Tyson would have been proud to deliver in his prime. My takeaway is, even though May has been painful (stocks down about 8%); the markets have been able to hang in there and still be positive for the year. Considering what we have had to deal with I find that pretty amazing.
Have a nice evening everyone
