Market Recap: S&P Moves Positive, But Tech-Heavy Nasdaq Still in the Red for 2011
- Posted on December 23, 2011 at 6:29pm by
Becket Adams
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Markets closed up on Wall Street today:
- Dow +1.02 percent
- S&P+0.90 percent
- Nasdaq +0.74 percent
- Oil +0.23 percent
- Gold -0.17 percent
On the commodities front:
- Oil (NYSE:USO) climbed to $99.81 a barrel
- Gold (NYSE:GLD) falling to $1,607.90 an ounce
- Silver (NYSE:SLV) climbed 0.15 percent to settle at $29.09
(Related: What Are ECB Actions and Utility Stocks Saying About Gold?)
Today’s markets were up because:
1) U.S. Economic Data: Orders for U.S. durable goods jumped in November by the most in four months, helping to offset weaker-than-forecast consumer spending. Reports claim that the sales of new homes rose in November to a seven-month high, while auto sales were up 3 percent. But it is Thursday’s jobless claims report, which showed another weekly decline in initial unemployment benefits claims for the week ended December 17, that trumps all, as investors believe that we can “look forward” to a steadily declining unemployment rate.
2) Payroll Tax Cut: Congress passed a two-month payroll tax cut extension today, which is supposed to buy them more time to effect an extension that will keep the payroll tax rate at 4.2 percent through 2012. Without any legislative action before December 31, the payroll tax rate would have jumped back up to 6.2 percent of wages on the first of the year, costing the average American $1,000.
3) Tech: After four days of gains, the S&P 500 cut its losses for the year, leaving the tech-heavy Nasdaq the only major U.S. index down for the year. Netflix has been a drag on the Nasdaq, as its share price more than halved this year, and fell from a $298 peak in July to $73 per share today. Still, the Nasdaq was up 0.74 percent today, led higher by Google and Apple, both of which will, short of a catastrophe, close the year significantly higher than they began trading on January 3. Both Google and Apple are still battling for mobile market share with their Android and iOS devices, but both have emerged triumphant as the market for both continues to expand at the expense of other phone makers.
[Editor’s note: the above is a cross post that originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet.]
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smitty1007
Posted on December 24, 2011 at 2:03pmThe jerks in Washington keep trying to put band aids on the economy, but do not correct the source of the problem! A trillion here, a trillion there, a trillion everywhere – bankrupting our country!
Report Post »Since demographics is what drives the economy, I believe that biggest source of the problem is the abomination of law passed by bigoted, immoral, liberal supreme court justices called Row v. Wade. Since the passing of this law FROM THE BENCH, over 50 million little, defenseless babies had their heads crushed and their brains sucked out just because women could not keep their legs crossed, because some found that having a baby was inconvenient or because Planned Parenthood talked people into abortion in order to increase their profits. (They should NOT receive federal funds.)
Roe v. Wade was passed in January 1973, so those aborted would have been 0 to 39 years old. They would have required that schools were built, roads were updated, a larger energy grid be provided and that at least 20 million more homes/apartments be built. They would have gotten married, had children, raised families, bought a house or rented an apartment, bought clothes, bought food, bought refrigerators, computers, cell phones, books, washers, dryers, dish washers, furniture and many more products that would have caused more factories to be built to manufacture these products and more stores to sell them in.
Now, because of Roe v. Wade, we have had over three years of recession with no sign of an e
ObserverOnTheHill
Posted on December 23, 2011 at 9:44pmHow the Eurozone crash was manufactured and how the bankers benefited – see here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htktdv28EF4
Report Post »Micmac
Posted on December 23, 2011 at 7:21pmThe Market has NOTHING to do with the day-to-day reality of the American populus. NoBama farts, market goes up…Egypt farts, market goes down. Who cares. Tomorrow it will be played out all over again, ad infititum. 800,000 bank-owned properties is a better indicator of where the country is. And what has this administration and congress done to help aleviate that problem…NADA. But they do have a tizzy over an extended tax break that puts $160.00 in your pockets, because it buys the political points. Speaks volumes.
The new Tea Party congressmen need to toe the line and not cave to Gumby Boehner.
NoBama 2012
Report Post »Reboot Washington
lukerw
Posted on December 23, 2011 at 6:46pmPseudo-religious Ritual!
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