Friends The big story of the day was the Supreme Court’s ruling to basically uphold Obama Care. Stocks had already begun the day in decisively negative territory, so the ruling that hit the wires after 9:00 our time, really did not have that much of an effect on...

Friends This morning we received a better than expected Durable Goods Orders number and for the 3rd day in a row we got good news on housing, with pending sales of existing homes looking better than expected. These reports combined with a quiet Europe, made for a good...

Friends German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that there will be no “shared liability” for as long as she lives. I wonder if she was referring to her political life? Anyway, it is difficult for anyone with even a smidge of common sense to disagree with Germans...

Friends Led by surprisingly good earnings by two Dow components, stocks (at least measured by the Dow) were able to break the 3 day losing streak. Both Caterpillar and Boeing announced better than expected results and provided rosier than expected guidance for the...

Friends The week got off to a very rocky start, as market participants shrugged off Friday’s attempt to calm things, and instead focused on continued deterioration in the Eurozone. With the EU summit scheduled to start later in the week, traders are becoming more and...

Friends It was a rather quiet day of trading after yesterday’s drubbing of stocks, as traders did a little bargain hunting, but were not too interested in making a lot of new commitments before the weekend. I think more time was spent complaining about a little heat...

Friends, The day started with a lousy weekly unemployment claims number, then a rough Philly Fed number, and got worse as the news of the “not unexpected” downgrade of the credit ratings of 5 major U. S. banks by Moody’s (which will affect borrowing cost and possibly...

Friends There was really nothing the Fed could do or Dr. Bernanke could say that would please all market participants. Some wanted more QE, some wanted less QE -there was just no winning today. They basically straddled the middle, the best that they could, and...

Friends With Europe rather quiet today, traders took a “risk on” attitude and stocks rallied most of the day. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 95 points to close at 12,837. The S&P 500 was up 13 points to close at 1357. Gold was down $6.60 to...

Friends After all the hoopla about the Greek elections over the weekend, trading began with a thud and basically drifted along throughout the trading session. There wasn’t a catastrophic outcome from the Greek elections, but the simple fact is that nothing has really...

Friends Domestically, the Empire State Manufacturing survey, Industrial Production and Consumer Sentiment numbers released this morning were more of the same of what we have seen lately. Combined with the other economic indicators this week, the picture of a slowing...

Friends Stocks continued their volatility with today’s movement to the upside. Stocks began the day with a nice advance, as traders interpreted the weak CPI number as a green light for more Fed accommodation. Oh boy, that’s exactly what we need, more of what hasn’t...

Friends Stocks began the day in negative fashion today only to work their way into positive territory by midday. But as the afternoon wore on, back into negative territory we went and by the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 77 points to finish the day...

Friends Bargain hunters were out in force today as stocks reversed yesterday’s thumping to register strong gains. After yesterday’s “sell the news” reaction to the Spanish bank “bailout”, traders seemed much more inclined to nibble at some of the more beaten down...

Friends Central banks around the world continue to provide liquidity in the form of bailouts, guarantees, low interest rates and asset purchases, but there comes a time when the “drugs” just don’t work anymore. You know, how when a patient is continuously given...