Stock Market Week in Review; Dow Jones Industrials, Nasdaq, S&P 500 Notes; Stock Index Trending News 2010
Posted on | December 19, 2010 | No Comments
Overall for last week, stock market action ended with relative highs. Monday opened the trading week with investor anticipation regarding the vote on the tax package. Stocks pushed higher early this day but ended the day mixed as the tech heavy Nasdaq was lower. Tuesday was greener.
Total sales in November increased .8% over sales from October. Sales are up and businesses are stockpiling inventory, two good signs in a recovering economy. In addition, a survey from the Business Roundtable reveals that an association of business leaders and CEO’s of larger U.S. companies believe that their companies will add additional workers over the next six months. In contrast though, the Fed reported that the economic recovery was not moving at a sufficient pace. As a result, QE2 would move forward as planned. The day following this Fed announcement turned trending red across the board even with some positive postings. The consumer price index rose .1% which is slightly less than what economists had been expecting. Inflation potentials have been a concern for many and thus this was good news. The Federal Reserve also reported that U.S. factory output rose for a fifth straight month in November. Overseas worries obscured the positive home postings and pulled index values lower. Thursday brought positive reporting stemming from the Labor Department and Commerce Department. The Labor Department reported that the number of people filing for initial unemployment benefits fell from 423,000 to 420,000 in the latest week. Continuing claims filed for two weeks or more were up 22,000. The Commerce Department reports that new private home starts rose higher than anticipated by analysts with an increase of 3.9% above the revised October figures. The last day of the week ended mixed. Lower volume around the holidays equals a choppy kind of trending. Overall for the week, composite trends moved forward and end the week at relative highs.
Author: Frank Matto