Friends
Wow, volatility is back indeed. After horrendous overnight trading in Japan, futures indicated early this morning that we might be in for an ugly day for the bulls. But decent economic news, including a solid retail sales number and another decent weekly jobless claims number, seemed to calm the trading community down and the open was somewhat uneventful. After probing the downside a couple of times, the bulls took charge, and stocks began an impressive climb.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 181 points to finish the day at 15,176. The S&P 500 was up 23 points to close at 1636. Gold was down $8 to trade at $1383 per ounce, while oil was up $.80 to trade at $96.68 per barrel WTI. The S&P was able to break back above short term resistance at 1624, and off to the races we went.
Boy it’s been a volatile couple of weeks. Again, just when the bears seem to have control of the situation having broken the 50 day moving average on the S&P, things turned abruptly today. Despite the near panic overnight over the Nikkei 225 collapsing, the bears could not gain any traction and the bulls filled the void. Just an amazing move considering what the morning looked like. Let’s see how the week ends tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
