…..of despair arose today’s market. As noted earlier today there was no good news, none. Yet traders seemed willing to accept a higher level of risk than recently. I noticed the same yesterday as the close was pretty strong. A Friday close with strength is pretty impressive. After all, someone is going home with stock in their account.
US markets shook off 4% declines in Tokyo, 2% in China and elsewhere. Advancing stocks led declining and the volume was a little better. If GE hadn’t been down almost 11% we would have a DOW in the green. S&P was actually up 1/2%. All in all a healthy day.
One wonders if there is a growing acceptance of things as they really are. Shares are down, earnings stink, the world in a massive recession that few have experienced, government debt is being downgraded around the world, currencies are for sale, corporations are paying top dollar for debt even as government bonds pay almost nothing. Is the despair baked into share prices?
Learned pundits are saying the worst is ahead of us. As evidence, Gold went up $43 an ounce even though the dollar was strong. This may be associated with the Indian stock market. Indians like to have gold. They buy it as jewelry and hoard it against a rainy day. With their stock market in disarray am wondering if we are experiencing a higher level of Indian buying.
Too many mixed signals to be easily understood. Am going to take it one day at a time. Dart in and dart out.
Tomorrow I will be attending DocuFest at our local university. This is an all day showing of documentaries from around the world. Although my wife said she would rather shoot herself than attend I am going to enjoy myself immensely. Have a terrific weekend!
