Yesterday, I was worried about the market. It is always more volatile on Fridays anyway, but yesterday would be a day of very little trading volume, as most of the big traders spend July spending big bucks in the tony Hamptons beach community, outside New York City. (A few large orders can move the market on a day of low trading volume.) Finally, the most important economic report of the month was being released, i.e., the "Jobs Report."
When the report came in awful, my first thought was that I'm glad my name is not Obama, but my second thought was that the market will surely over-react. Within an hour of the open, the Dow was down 130 points. Obviously, the sellers had not left for the beach yet, but would there be any buyers that afternoon?
To my pleasant surprise, the Dow was only down 62 points at the close. It actually rallied somewhat and reduced its loss . . . on a Friday afternoon . . . during beach season in July . . . following a nasty Jobs Report . . . ??? My first suspicion was that a few large orders moved the market up at the close, but the tape doesn't show that.
I've remarked several times in this blog that the market is showing a surprising amount of underlying strength in the face of a weak labor market, intractable partisanship, and a looming disaster when the government defaults.
After a two year recession and two more years of anemic recovery, America wants to be raging bull again, as soon as Washington unleashes it! I miss that old bull . . .
We can even afford to explore space again . . . Yes, we can!
