Friends,
Coming off of a Thanksgiving week that was the worst for stocks in over 80 years, this week ends up also being one for the history books, but this time to the positive. A week that contained glimmers of hope out of Europe also included “pretty good” domestic economic numbers. This morning, we got the all- important employment report, and although the number of non-farm payroll jobs created was slightly less than analyst had expected, we did create another 123,000 new jobs. The positive surprise was that the unemployment rate fell to 8.6% (yes it was aided by some folks just dropping out of job seeking market place), which is the best reading we have had in 2 ½ years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day flat to close at 12,019. The S&P 500 was down a fraction to close at 1244. Gold was up $10 for the day and oil was up $.83 to finish at $101 per barrel WTI. Stocks surrendered the 125 Dow point early gains late in the day, but still had a 788 point up move in the Dow for the week (7%) and an 86 point or 7.42% move in the S&P 500. Talk about volatility! If we were simply trading on domestic news, I would be comfortable in saying that the Santa Claus rally is indeed upon us. Unfortunately, we never know what we will be walking into, in terms of Europe, on Monday morning. Merkel and Sarkozy are scheduled to meet on Monday. We’ll see what transpires.
Have a nice weekend everyone.
