Daily Market Reports

The Dow closed slightly lower last night having fluctuated on a wild ride in the oil price.

The Dow rallied 165 points on Friday on yet another unremarkable CPI number, while oil slipped and Lehman returned from the grave.

The Dow shot out of the blocks on the retail sales figure, but closed only 57 points higher as the oil price weighed in.

It was another day of few positives as US shares declined for the third day in a row.

The Dow finished as good as unchanged as inflation talk took the US dollar up, oil down some more and gold down a lot.

The Dow managed to recover 70 points as oil fell back US$4, but the broader indices were not as positive.

On Friday night oil jumped by more than US$10 and the Dow fell 400 points.

Oil jumped over US$5 last night and some supposedly strong economic data sent the Dow up over 200.

A rally in the Dow failed last night as once again Moody’s threatened to downgrade the big monoline insurers. Oil fell further.

It was shades of Bear Stearns last night as the rumour mill conspired to send Lehman down as much as 14%, while oil fell over US$3 after stern words from the Fed.