Friends
Stocks looked like they might enjoy another day of gains as trading began this morning, but by midday the shooting in Canada seemed to have the markets on edge and stocks gave back some of the gains of the previous 3 sessions. Despite the 3 day rally, stocks still seem to be in a somewhat fragile state. It seems like any negative headline is quickly seized up by the bears. Some of today’s earnings numbers were actually pretty good, (just the opposite of yesterday when stocks rose despite some lousy earnings reports), and as mentioned stocks, looked ok early.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 153 points to finish the day at 16,461. The S&P 500 was down 14 points to close at 1927. Gold was down $10 to trade at $1241 per ounce, while oil was down $1.93 to trade at $80.55 per barrel WTI.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, these violent swings both up and down are not an indication of a stable situation. Bear/correcting markets can have sharp short rallies that are very violent, and even if you are more a glass half full type of investor (which we prefer to be), sudden downturns cause technical damage that must be repaired (perhaps today’s backing and filling is such an example). Either way, volatility is upon us. We had a prolonged quiet period, so this should not be a surprise to market participants.
Have a nice evening everyone.
