ETF Periscope: Bulls Gain Steam, but Euro-Zone Concerns Bear Close Watch
ETF Periscope: Bulls Gain Steam, but Euro-Zone Concerns Bear Close Watch
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Courtesy of Daniel Sckolnik, ETF Periscope
“Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.” – Henry Miller
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rose by almost a full percentage point on Friday, but like so many aspects of the current market, that number is somewhat misleading.
Tech leader IBM powered the Dow to its fourth winning day in a row, which left the blue-chip index up 2.4% on the week. However, with IBM being the highest-priced component within the Dow universe, its upward move, coming in at over 4%, disproportionally raised the Dow’s bottom line.
For comparison, if you take a look at the S&P 500 Index (SPX), it gained a relatively paltry 0.1% on Friday. However, the benchmark index, which offers a far more accurate read on the equity market in general, did manage to gain 2% on the week, placing it at a level not seen since late July of 2011. It now has a very minimal cushion of 1% atop the psychologically important 1,300 level, while also sitting relatively high above its own 200-day moving average.
Rounding out the big three indexes, the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP) lost 0.1% on Friday, suffering defeat at the hands of the bad beat investors put on Google (GOOG) following its unenthusiastically received 4Q earnings report.
Fourth quarter earnings season has, on the whole, been the prime mover for the mini Bull Run that Wall Street has experienced since the ball dropped on the New Year. Though the numbers reported by companies so far have generally met analysts’ expectations, the upward trend in stocks year-to-date can be at least partially attributed to the fact that, so far for the year, domestic reports out of Washington have fallen into the “neutral-to-fair” category.
Probably a far greater factor in January’s current upward trend has been the fact that negative noise out of the euro-zone has been minimal. And, while investors are hardly dancing in the streets due to enacted solutions geared towards solving the EU debt crisis, sentiment does seems to be leaning towards the possibility that the worst of the matter may be baked into current stock prices.
This assumption may prove to be a major flaw, at least in the long term.
While the new head of…
http://www.philstockworld.com/2012/01/24/etf-periscope-bulls-gain-steam-but-eurozone-concerns-bear-close-watch/
