End of Quarter is Here

The market finally decided to have an up day.  The news was not particularly bullish but the quarter is drawing to a close and we still have to have our rally so we did.  The first report on the market tonight was “traders were hard pressed to come up with a reason for the rally”, noteworthy press.  

But, now what?  The market wants us to believe it has the capability of rallying but has shown very little strength until today.  So, how strong was today?  The market is managing to work off its oversold condition.  With the big move we saw today, guess what, the Dow Industrials made it back into the 10,500 range again.  We figured this week it would try to do that and today it succeeded.  The end of quarter and end of mutual fund fiscal years are upon us tomorrow so the usual stocks need to move up so that the money managers can show what a good year they had.  Yes, sarcasm.  

This being the last post of the week as we wait until next week to put on any new positions, we thought we would keep it short due to the low level of news out there.  But, the one item that seems to escape the country is that Rita made a pretty good sized dent in the energy producers in the Gulf.  The Wall Street Journal will have an article titled “Gulf Energy Facilities Get Off To a Slow Restart After Storms”.  The article gives some thoughts about what is going on in the real energy market, where the energy is produced not in the financial market.  The article mentions that the undersecretary of energy thinks “consumers need to know” that heating your homes will cost about 50% more than last year.  The reason they “need to know” is so “they can take steps to do something about it”.  What exactly does he think we can do, move south where heating your home is not really necessary?  Thanks for the tip Mr. Undersecretary of Energy.

The precious metals sector was on fire today as it continues to out perform the broader market.  We of course are out of our position and today was the first day that we are disappointed about it.  Oh well, we will have another chance at this sector again very soon.  And, if not, we will have other opportunities.  

Have a good weekend and we’ll see you back here on Sunday evening.

Dow Industrials:  10,552.78   +79.69
BGEIX:  13.55   (oh well, I guess we left a little on the table)