2/15/08
The U.S. markets are closed Monday for the President's Day holiday.
The testimony of Fed Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson on Thursday ended the previous three days of rally. But in spite of the carry over effect of them saying conditions are worsening, and more ugly economic reports yesterday, the market was surprisingly resilient yesterday. It overcame considerable weakness at mid-day, when the Dow was down 100 points, to close mixed, with the Dow down only 28 points and the S&P 500 and NYSE Composite actually closing fractionally positive for the day. And both the Dow and S&P 500 were up 1.4% for the week.
It does leave the question still unanswered as to whether the previous week's decline was a resumption of the downside or just a retest of the January lows. In fact, the rally in the first three days this week broke the major indexes back above their short-term 21-day moving averages, and Thursday's and yesterday's further fractional plunge, brought them back down exactly to the moving average, where they could just be re-testing the potential support at the moving average, and ready to leave another higher low behind.
In fact the S&P 500 bounced fractionally off the m.a. yesterday, closing up 1 point, while the Dow needed its further 28 point decline yesterday to bring it down exactly to its 21-day m.a..
So we get another week to wait for the direction of Mr. Market to be clarified, maybe.
Till next time
MTA Staff
