Friends,
Since the drubbing that stocks took last Monday and Wednesday, we have seen a very nice three-day rally, which by the way, no one seems to care about or like. Traders don’t seem to really believe what they are seeing and continue to worry about tomorrow’s meeting between Merkel and Sarkozy, not to mention the litany of domestic economic numbers we will get, including tomorrow’s housing starts and industrial production reports. On Wednesday, we get the PPI numbers and on Thursday we get existing home sales, CPI and the weekly jobless claims. Plenty of things for investors to be concerned about. In the meantime, stocks are taking advantage of the “quiet period” and climbing back to where we were before the Standard and Poor’s downgrade. In reality, nothing has really changed since last week except the market’s mood.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day up 213 points to close at 11,482 and the S&P 500 closed at 1204. If you were on vacation last week and didn’t pay any attention to the news, you would look at your accounts today and they would be about the same as when you left. Remember, of course, stocks had already dropped more than 12% before the S&P downgrade. Gold was up again today closing around the $1766 level, and oil is right back up near $88 per barrel after dipping to under $80 last week (our lower gas price benefit is disappearing quickly).
Looks like it’s going to be another interesting week. We will keep you up to date. Have a nice evening everyone.
