Daily Market Reports

The Dow bounced back from the depths of more financial sector woes last night as commodity prices went the other way – finally reaching a blow-off top that saw a profit-taking scramble.

The flight to commodities continues a-pace as the US dollar weakened further last night on more poor economic data. The Dow recovered earlier losses.

Municipal bonds became the latest domino to fall in the credit crisis on Friday, and a raft of bad economic and corporate news conspired to send the Dow down 300 points.

More downbeat comments from the Fed, a weak GDP, soaring oil and gold as the greenback slides, and a down day for the Dow.

On February 27, 2007, Wall Street collapsed in response to the Shanghai Surprise – a response that alerted the world to something called “subprime”.

An announced US$15bn buyback by IBM turned Wall Street around in the face of stagflationary data.

The Dow exploded to the upside mid-afternoon when S&P announced bond insurers Ambac and MBIA could both keep their AAA ratings.

The Dow bounced hard on the death on Friday as news broke that Ambac was about to be rescued.

Last night’s Philadelphia economic activity index was the worst reading since just before the 2001 recession.

The Dow closed up 90 points last night in a session dominated by the release of the January Fed minutes.