Friends
Investors seemed very pleased that the French election ended in a runoff between the moderate Emmanuel Macron and the right wing candidate Marine Le Pen. The feeling is that the moderate Macron should pick up votes from the vanquished candidates and easily beat Le Pen in the runoff. All this would be less threatening to the EU than a Le Pen victory, so European stocks soared. Futures gapped higher on Sunday evening and stocks followed through with a strong opening this morning. The bulls held the high ground throughout the trading session as stocks held the overnight gains.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 216 points to finish the day at 20,763. The S&P 500 was up 25 points to close at 2,374. Gold was down $12 to trade at $1,276 per ounce, while oil was down $.39 to trade at $49.23 per barrel WTI.
Now we brace for a big week of earnings including Caterpillar, 3M, McDonalds, Boeing, Coca Cola, AT&T Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Southwest Airlines, Chevron and Exxon Mobil- just to name a few. By the end of the week we will have a good handle on this earnings season, and we still expect it will be a good one when all is said and done. Let’s see if the bulls can build on today’s action and if earnings can justify the move. Stay tuned.
Have a nice evening everyone.
