Friends
How can you blame traders, investors and market participants in general for simply being exhausted? The ride that we all experienced in the first quarter of 2016 was one for the books. As you well know, stock indexes tumbled 10% to the downside by the time we were in the second week of February, only to see an abrupt about face occur as the rest of February unfolded. And March- wow! As bad as January was, is as good as March finished up today. When all is said a done, both the S&P and the Dow erased all of the early in the year losses and finished slightly positive for the quarter. Of course, now we have earnings season to deal with, but first things first.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 31 points to finish the day at 17,685. The S&P 500 was down 4 points to close at 2059. Gold was up $4 to trade at $1,233 (finishing a strong quarter buoyed by a weak dollar), while oil was down $.05 to trade at $38.27 per barrel WTI.
While today marks the end of the quarter, don’t forget tomorrow we get the all-important jobs report. No rest for the weary.
Have a nice evening everyone.
