Friends
For those of you with strong political convictions, don’t blame me, but today’s narrative on Wall Street was that stocks were buoyed by the belief that Hillary Clinton won last night’s debate. The feeling is that Hillary brings more of the same, and that is better than whatever it is that Donald Trump might bring. Basically it’s better the devil you know, or simply put, markets do not like the unknown. Hillary is a known, Trump is an unknown. Ok, enough of the political market interpretations.
After some early seesaw action, stocks rose nicely and held the gains in the final hour of trading. By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 133 points to finish the day at 18,228. The S&P 500 was up 13 points to close at 2,159. Gold was down $13 to trade at $1,330 per ounce, while oil was down $1.39 to trade at $44.54 per barrel WTI.
Once again, in contrast to what happened in August, we have seen a lot of volatility in September which comes to a close on Friday. Amazingly, despite all the volatility, the S&P is down only fractionally for the month at the moment. So like August, we seem to be ending in the same spot, but September’s ride has been a lot more interesting.
Have a nice evening everyone.
