Friends
It appears that Santa is unable to deliver the much anticipated year-end rally that was to propel the Dow past 20,000. Volume has dried up and buyers have all but disappeared. No, there hasn’t been an overwhelming amount of selling (see the light volume) but when there aren’t any buyers it doesn’t take much selling to move prices lower.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 111 points to finish the day at 19,833. The S&P 500 was down 18 points to close at 2249. Gold was up $4 to trade at $1,143 per ounce, while oil was up $.12 to trade at $54.02 per barrel WTI. Nat Gas was up $.0136 to finish trading at $3.965.
The rally that we experienced after the election was bound to run out of steam at some point, and sure enough, this one did. Now, if you are a bull you can say that this pause is healthy, that even some type of pullback from here wouldn’t be all bad. If you’re a bear, you might point to the fact that these big round numbers like Dow 20,000 often cause havoc, and quite simply we just ran too far too fast after the election. We will know who is right soon enough, but as we coast into year-end November’s euphoria has been replaced by some doubt here in December.
Have a nice evening everyone.
