The Dow over 11,000, will it hold? by Ken Mahoney
It seems the markets have been flirting with trader’s emotions lately. Early in the week, stock and bond markets were fanning the flames of new milestones, but quickly cooled on Wednesday when the Dow fell 72.47 points to 10,897.52, marking the biggest decline in more than a month. On Friday, stocks began their ascent again, briefly topping 11,000 during the final 10 minutes of trading, and eventually ending the session at 10,997.35. Commenting on this “psychologically important” number, Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial said, "The move to 11,000 is a clear sign of a well-advanced recovery in the market".
For the week, the S&P 500 gained 8 points, closing at an 18-month high, while the Nasdaq composite gained 17 points, ending at its highest point since June of 2008. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 have all risen in seven of the past eight weeks.
Last week, the markets were helped by positive sales reports from the nation’s retailers, shifting focus away from concerns about ongoing weakness in the labor and housing markets. This week, with the unofficial start of the earnings season kicking off, more good news could be in store for the markets.
On a final note, don’t forget that the week ahead brings the tax-filing deadline to an end on Thursday, April 15th.
Key things we’ll be watching this week:
Monday – Treasury Budget
Tuesday – International Trade, Redbook
Wednesday – Consumer Price Index, Retail Sales, Business Inventories
Thursday – Initial Jobless Claims, Industrial Production
Friday – Housing Starts, Consumer Sentiment
Notes: All index returns exclude reinvested dividends, and the 5-year and 10-year returns are annualized. Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, Barron’s, djindexes.com, MSCI Barra. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not available.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other top officials were killed in a plane crash in Russia Saturday. Cities across Poland fell silent for two minutes Sunday afternoon as the country remembered them.
Euro-zone finance ministers agreed Sunday that if heavily indebted Greece were to get a bailout, it could receive as much as €30 billion in loans this year at about 5% interest from fellow euro nations.
Twin Cities businessman Tom Petters will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for orchestrating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme -- one of the largest in U.S. history second only to Bernie Madoff.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, leader of the high court's liberal bloc and the court's oldest member, is retiring this summer, giving President Barack Obama his second Supreme Court opening to fill.
The U.S. and Russia sealed the first major nuclear weapons treaty in nearly two decades Friday, agreeing to slash the former Cold War rivals' warhead arsenals by nearly one-third and talking hopefully of eventually ridding a fearful world of nuclear arms altogether.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.” - Muhammad Ali
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Sources:
Marketwatch
The Wall Street Journal Online
Barrons
CNN Money
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304168004575177872689747694.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304168004575177203537027616.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/08/news/economy/Tom_Petters/index.htm
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/supreme-court-justice-stevens-to-retire-2010-04-09
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36050902/ns/world_news-europe/
The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted average of 30 significant stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. The DJIA was invented by Charles Dow back in 1896.
The MSCI EAFE Index was created by Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) that serves as a benchmark of the performance in major international equity markets as represented by 21 major MSCI indexes from Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia.
The 10-year Treasury Note represents debt owed by the United States Treasury to the public. Since the U.S. Government is seen as a risk-free borrower, investors use the 10-year Treasury Note as a benchmark for the long-term bond market.
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