Above the fold
Stocks Resilient in the face of Headlines and Retail Sales
Independent Investment Management designed to protect and grow your wealth.
JIM CARLTON
Managing Director
Chief Investment Officer
Friends
The stock market is showing some impressive resilience. The bears delivered a haymaker this morning in the form of a miserable retails sales number, which initially did send stocks lower (more than 250 Dow points), but those losses were erased by midday. As the afternoon wore on and headlines hit that the President was going to sign the spending bill and declare a state emergency, market participants stepped back and stocks drifted lower into the close.
For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 103 points to finish the day at 25,439. The S&P 500 was down 7 points to close at 2,745. Gold was up $1 to trade at $1,315 per ounce, while oil was up $.63 to trade at $54.53 per barrel WTI.
Yes, we continue to straddle formidable resistance levels, but the bulls have to be encouraged that a lukewarm corporate earnings season and mixed economic data hasn’t put more pressure on stocks. Headlines move markets, but mostly are forgotten rather quickly. Economic data and corporate earnings are the true weighing apparatus of the markets. Let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
Jim