Wall Street climbs with boost from healthcare, banks

After a minor pullback yesterday, another major 3-digit rally today with the Dow zooming 102 points to yet another new record and the Nasdaq and S&P both scoring six consecutive records.  Part of the boost came from the hopeful prospects of the cooling of the tempest in North Korea with the talk of first talks.  And with each day that we get closer to Q4 reporting, there remains great anticipation that the news will terrific, currently with a forecast of an 11.8% rise versus 2016’s 8% Q4.  At 6.7 billion, volume continues just a little higher than recent averages. 

S&P keeps New Year's rally alive, Dow eases

After Friday’s big 220 point boost, it was time for investors to take a breather today and that’s exactly what happened.  The main cause of concern that brought the Dow down a trifling 12 points is waiting to see whether Q4 earnings are going to favor the banks after all or not.  The verdict on this will be coming in the next few weeks.  Meanwhile, the three indexes have had their strongest opening week in more than ten years, the Dow since 2003 and the S&P since ’06.  This is especially encouraging since historically the opening week has proven a reliable indicator for the whole year.  Volume was a little above recent averages at just under 6.4 billion shares traded. 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 1.5.18 (plus predictions for 2018)

Below is the usual Sunday night weekly summation.  This week's bonus is an article from a recent issue of Investment News in which their guru, Bob Doll, makes his 10 predictions of what's going to happen to the market in 2018.  Prognosticators are always entertaining.  Hopefully this severe cold snap is over now and we can enjoy the coming week.

Dow tops 25,000 milestone; Wall St extends New Year's rally

With today’s strong reports re the manufacturing and service sectors plus private hiring being up, the Dow passed the 25,000 mark with a big 152 point boost.  Remember at the bottom of the recession when the Dow had dropped from 14,000 to just under 7,000 and everyone was saying it would never reach 10,000 again?  Remember the pundits predicting that the S&P might drop so precipitously that the graph lines for it and gold would soon cross?  And though some experts believe that stocks are dramatically overvalued, today’s expert says it better, “As long as you have economic growth and earnings moving higher, there’s still a solid underpinning.”  Volume remains above average at 7 billion. 

S&P 500 tops 2,700 on tech advance; Dow, Nasdaq hit records

The minutes from the Fed’s last meeting surfaced today and with their statement of support for continuing gradual rate increases which investors are now taking as “steady as she goes,” all three indexes shot up again with the S&P climbing over 2700 for the first time.  And since all 3 indexes were already at record highs, once again today they have tabulated new records.  Other good news included an increase in factory activity and the tech sector bouncing back after the recent selloff.  The VIX also closed at 9.15 just glancing the record of 9.14 set on November 3^rd.  Volume was quite healthy and above average at 7.1 billion. 

Wall Street starts year on strong note; Nasdaq ends above 7,000

Just as all the prognosticators said, the trend continues with bullish sentiment into the new year, the Dow up 104 points and the Nasdaq breaking 7,000 at close for the first time.  This reflects all the optimism investors had throughout the latter half of ’17 which is expected to continue through the first half of ’18.  Today it was driven largely by gains in tech which had seen some pullback in the last couple weeks. And volume, as expected, returned to normal levels with 6.7 billion shares traded on the first market day of the year with everyone back from vacation. 

Charley Ellis and Burton Malkiel: “The Elements of Investing”

Barry Ritholtz has offered a particularly exciting New Year's present for all of us with this 1-1/2 hour YouTube presentation of a discussion of the past ten years of market developments with none other than those gurus of gurus, Charley Ellis and Burton Malkiel.  Yes, 1-1/2 may seem like a big investment in time but just look at it this way instead -- instead of getting an MBA, just watch this video instead.  It's a lot easier than getting an MBA ... and possibly just as informative.  Happy New Year everyone!   (Oh, and by the way, included below is also the weekly summation,)