Friends
Stocks continue to slowly climb towards the old highs in a very quiet and deliberate manner. The bears seem flustered and frustrated as the mountain of reasons for stocks to go down doesn’t seem to be enough to stop the bulls’ climb. Today’s JOLTS number showed in April there was an all-time high in job openings, which seems to be a contradiction to new job creation. Maybe folks are not qualified for the jobs that are available thus suppressing hiring. Whatever the case, the more important thing for stocks might be the surge in oil prices recently with WTI holding above $50 per barrel. Once again it appears what’s good for oil is also good for stocks.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 66 points to finish the day at 18,005. The S&P 500 was up 7 points to close at 2119. Gold was up $15 to trade at $1,262 per ounce, while the aforementioned oil was up $.78 to trade at $51.14 per barrel WTI.
At this pace, by week’s end we may be pushing new highs in the market averages. Yes, it is only a modest gain for the year to date, but considering how the year began, it is quite impressive that the bulls were able to stem the tide in February and push all the way back to where we were last year. The bears may counter that we haven’t actually gone anywhere (and if you go back to the end of QE in October of 2014, they do have a case) in recent times, but a “correction” can be one of price or can be one of time (or both). If this turns out to be nothing more than building a “big base” from which to begin the next up cycle, the bears will lose their minds.
We got some nice feedback from the video of Nick Murray that we linked the other day. Glad some of you were able to watch and enjoy it.
Have a nice evening everyone.
