Friends
The morning was filled with a bevy of news items including a better than expected weekly jobless claims number. Jobless claims fell 15,000 last week to 358,000 and continues to show an improving trend. Also Greek leaders seem to have a deal in terms of austerity measures (at least we think they do), which should prevent default next month, but details were not forthcoming. Later in the morning the president rolled out the deal to settle claims of improper foreclosure practices by five big banks, which should remove some of the uncertainty hanging over the banks.
As we mentioned a couple of days ago, the Greek “deal” was met with a yawn, with stocks actually selling off in the morning only to recover slightly throughout the day. By the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 6 points to finish the day at 12,890. The S&P 500 was up 2 points to close near 1352, which finally gets us above the 1350 number. Gold was mainly flat for the day, finishing near $1730 after a nice rise early in the morning. Oil was up about $1 to close near $99.69 per barrel WTI. On the bond front, todays 30 year auction was just ok as demand was a bit lighter than we have seen lately.
As earnings season winds down, the report card would probably indicate a C+/B- type of grade. So why is the market so resilient and reluctant to sell off this year? The answer may simply be that something could be changing. Perhaps we are experiencing a little P/E expansion where stocks get rewarded with a higher multiple (value) than they had been in recent years. Heck, sitting a 0% in bank accounts just might draw some money in at some point. It could be an interesting year, but so far the silence is deafening.
Have a nice evening everyone.
