Stocks Plow Ahead, Ignore Worries

May 9, 2018 | Market Commentary

Friends 

Despite the hand wringing about potential fallout from the Iran deal, and worries about the effects of rising oil prices on the economy, stocks rallied in late morning trading and held on to most of those gains as the afternoon wore on. Helping the market averages was the rise in energy names. Shares that haven’t had any love in years, despite oil prices pushing much higher finally are finding some buyers. 

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 182 points to finish the day at 24,542. The S&P 500 was up 25 points to close at 2,697. Gold was down $2 to trade at $1,311 per ounce, while the aforementioned oil was up $2.07 to trade at $71.13 per barrel WTI. 

So, despite interest rates ticking back up over 3% on the 10 year, and oil prices spiking to highs we haven’t seen for a few years, the bulls were unfazed. Are we emerging from the earnings malaise of the past few weeks? Is the growth story back on track? Industrials are perking up again, energy is perking up for the first time in a long time, and tech has recovered much of what it had lost since February. I’m not sure we can fully trust it yet, but at least we’ve seen a few good signs since late last week. Let’s see if the bulls have more up their sleeve the rest of this week. 

Have a nice evening everyone.

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