Friends
As we suspected, the foolish hand wringing over stale Fed minutes did not last very long. The bulls captured the high ground once again today sending shares higher from the opening bell. On the economic front the weekly jobless claims number was slightly better than expected, and the PPI number once again showed that government measured inflation is basically non-existent. As the year-end gets closer, the TINA (there is no alternative) market seems to be in full force, as stocks appear to be the only game in town. Of course, there is still bubble talk all day long on the business news channels. That’s probably a good thing even if it is tiresome. Could stocks go down at any moment? Sure they could, but this fascination with bubbles is interesting.
Anyway, for the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 109 points to close at 16,009. The S&P 500 was up 14 points to finish the day at 1795. Gold was down $16 to trade at $1241 per ounce, while oil was up $1.33 to trade at $95.18 per barrel WTI. The bulls were able to get the Dow to close above 16,000 but still have a little work to do on the S&P.
In summary, the economy continues to plod along but in a positive direction, corporate earnings continue to rise at a modest pace despite a lack of revenue growth, and there really seems to be no alternative to stocks right now, as bonds of any measurable length of maturity seem somewhat toxic. The bears have had “logic” and “reason” on their side all year, but to no avail. To date, 2013 is the year of the bull.
Have a nice evening everyone.
