The market continues to trade with news related to the fiscal cliff. “Cautiously optimistic” comments were being made over the weekend regarding a positive resolution to the situation. There was also positive news from Europe as Greece may receive its next tranche of aid during tomorrow’s Eurozone summit.
The S&P 500 closed up just under 2%. Tim Geithner and several others issued encouraging reports about fiscal cliff negotiations. Materials, technology, financials and consumer discretionary were the best performing sectors on the day. Apple was the leading driver to the strong performance of the broader market and the tech sector today. Apple finished up over 7% today. There was a reversal in the shares last Friday and then there was a favorable story on the company in Barron’s over the weekend.
The S&P 500 went down through its 200 day moving average after the recent heavy selling. The index closed just over the its 200 day moving average today at 1386. The positive news regarding US markets over the weekend set a positive tone for trading in Europe. It is now expected that Greece will receive aid tomorrow. Hopefully, there will be more clarity regarding Greece's future.
Commodities were mostly positive today. Silver, crude copper, gold were all higher. Silver gained better than 2% on the day and gold gained roughly 1%. Crude oil was up 2.6% to close at $89.17 a barrel.
Existing home sales exceeded expectations. Existing sales increased 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted 4.79 million in October. The NAHB housing survey index hit levels not seen since 2006.
Large banks performed well today with Bank of America at the lead. Insurance companies have acted well over the past few days as losses related to Sandy appear to be not as large as originally estimated.
Source: PFS Group
