Friends
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that there will be no “shared liability” for as long as she lives. I wonder if she was referring to her political life? Anyway, it is difficult for anyone with even a smidge of common sense to disagree with Germans who believe it’s not their responsibility to bail out every dead beat country in Europe. On the other hand, what choice do they have?
Well, even though Ms. Merkel took the air out of stocks for a while this morning, the bulls gathered their forces and for the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up a modest 32 points to finish the day at 12,535. The S&P 500 was up 6 points to close at 1320. Gold was down $15 to trade at $1572 per ounce, while oil was mostly unchanged with WTI finishing the day just shy of $80 per barrel.
On the economic front we got decent news on housing for the second day in a row. Today the Case-Shiller housing price index showed slight improvement in many markets, but the consumer confidence number was just shy of expectations. Traders remain squarely focused on Thursday’s EU summit and the Obama Care decision from the Supreme Court. Again, this week marks the end of the quarter, so with all the potential news hitting towards the end of the week, we could have a lot of action on Thursday and Friday. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
