Daily Market Reports | Dec 13 2008
By Greg Peel
The Dow closed up 64 points or 0.8% while the S&P gained 0.7% and the Nasdaq an enthusiastic 2.2%.
As anticipated, there was little point in turning up on Friday given the session’s lack of excitement but at least Wall Street turned a negative 200 on the open into an up day for the Dow. It closed at 8629 having closed last Friday at 8635 after the jobs report rally. At least Friday’s are currently buying days rather than the big selling days we’ve become accustomed to.
At least in the US. Australia’s Friday was one to sell but the 80-odd point drop in the ASX 200 was supposedly recovered on Friday’s indication by an 83 point jump in the SPI Overnight.
The Dow opened weak – down over 200 points – as it appeared that attempts to rescue the auto industry would be scuppered in Congress. But then the government came out and said they would definitely do something to help and so the Dow drifted higher for the rest of the day.
The only other news of any importance was that the November PPI fell a more than expected 2.2% following the big 2.8% fall in October, helping to ram home the fact that inflation fears were so five minutes ago.
The auto industry looked like it was down the toilet as London was closing for the week, so base metals all took a tumble after a solid few days. All were mostly down around 4%.
The falls came despite any movement of note in the US dollar, so oil fell US$1.70 to US$46.28/bbl after Thursday’s big jump and gold ticked up another US$2.10 to US$822.00/oz. The Aussie lost around half a cent to US$0.6643.
As noted, the SPI Overnight jumped 2.4%.
Next week sees a Fed rate decision on Tuesday in what is basically the last “real” trading week for the year. Economists are expecting 0.5% but the way things have been going recently Wall Street will probably shrug either way.
