Blog Archives

Morphing Into Moral Issues

November 14, 2011

Good morning. A nice Veteran’s Day rally on Friday had the SPY closing up on the week after a serious down move on Wednesday following a spike in Italian debt rates to well over the supposed 7% danger level. The SPY closed up 1.18 (.9%) at 126.66, with the ranges being a low of 122.86 on Wednesday after a high of 128.02 on Tuesday. The VIX was up slightly (.11) to close at 30.15, but had a spike to 36.43 during Wednesday’s sharp sell-off. In general the market remained driven by news from Europe, but it does seem that, in the absence of bad news out of Europe, the direction appears positive.

Governmental Overload

March 3, 2009

Good morning. The weekly report on “last” week is starting to sound very familiar, with no good news for the market to be found. “Last” week the S&P was down another 4.5%, down from $77.42 to $73.93, bringing the yearly drop to an astounding 18%. Reasons abound, a good example being the government revision of fourth quarter GDP numbers from a minus 3.2% annual growth to minus 6%, way more than most had envisioned.