Friends
Ok, now that’s a little better. After yesterday’s massively failed rally, today’s early gains didn’t exactly instill confidence in the hearts of traders, but as it turns out, the gains not only held, but increased in the last hour of trading. A second massive reversal day would have been out of the ordinary, so at least we didn’t have to deal with that today.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 619 points to finish the day at 16,285. The S&P 500 was up 72 points to close at 1940. Gold was down $15 to trade at $1123 per ounce, while oil was down $.35 to trade at $38.96 per barrel WTI.
On the economic front (yes it really does matter in the long run) the durable goods orders were much better than expected. We’ll get second look at 2nd quarter GDP tomorrow (revision), so perhaps nerves can be calmed just a bit by some strength in the domestic economic situation. Either way, expect this volatility to play out a little longer. At some point it will exhaust itself and the market will have experienced a reset. What we need is growth in the economy and growth in corporate revenues as well as earnings to confidently begin a new advance in share prices. Well, let’s see what tomorrow brings.