Two more major banks are re-paying TARP money.
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009. 9:15 a.m.
A few days ago Bank of America paid back the $45 billion of TARP money it had borrowed in the bailout. That followed TARP paybacks by several other major banks in June, including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
And now today Wells Fargo announced it will be paying back $25 billion, and Citigroup said it will be paying back $20 billion.
That will bring the total so far to $161 billion of the $245 billion that was provided being paid back. In addition the government stands to make a profit of $14 billion on its temporary investments in Citigroup.
Subscribers: There is an important Special Report and hotline in the subscribers’ area of the website from Sunday. And the new issue of the newsletter will be out tomorrow!
Non-Subscribers: The sample issue of the Street Smart Report newsletter has been updated to a later issue you might find interesting. To go to it click the link near the top of the column on the right.
Yesterday in the U.S. market:
Another positive day. There was virtually no volatility. The Dow moved in a total range of 57 points all day, and closed in the middle of the narrow range, up 29 points. Once again on low volume with 1.07 billion shares traded on the NYSE.
The Dow closed up 29 points, or 0.3%. The S&P 500 closed up 0.7%. The NYSE Composite closed up 0.9%. The Nasdaq closed up 1.0%. The Russell 2000 closed up 1.6%. The DJ Transportation Avg. closed up 1.7%.
Asian markets were mostly down last night.
The DJ-Asia index closed down 0.9%.
Among individual countries; Australia closed up 0.4%. China closed down 0.9%. Hong Kong closed down 1.2%. Japan closed up 0.2%. India closed down 1.3%. Singapore closed down 0.1%. South Korea closed up 0.1%. Taiwan closed down 0.2%.
NOTE: If you’d like to see charts of how these and other markets have performed for the week so far, month so far, and last 3-months, click here, and click on any of the market indexes at the left side of the page it takes you to.
Markets this morning:
European markets are down on average of almost 1%.
Oil is up $.42 a barrel at 69.93 at the moment, still losing its upside momentum since mid-October when it reached $81.37.
Gold is down $9 an ounce at $1,115.
In the U.S.:
This week has a quite heavy schedule of potential market-moving economic reports, which begins today. To see the week’s full schedule click here, and look at the left side of the page it takes you to.
The Producer Price Index for November, measuring inflation at the producer level, was just released. It came in considerably worse than expected, up 1.8% in November versus being up 0.3% in October, and the consensus forecast of a 1% rise. The core rate (with the cost of energy and food removed) rose 0.5% versus being down 0.6% in October.
And the NY State Mfg Index fell sharply, from 23.51 in November to 2.55 this month.
Still to come are Industrial Production, due out in a few minutes, and the Housing Market Index. which will be released at 1 p.m.
Pre-open indicators were fractionally negative before the reports, and are just a bit more negative since the disappointing reports.
Our pre-open indicators are now pointing to the Dow being down 40 points or so in the early going.
Stock Market Patterns.
This is the quarter’s quadruple-witching expirations week (stock options, index options, futures and options on futures expire Friday), and the expirations week tends to be positive.
Interesting Chart of the Morning.
The dollar’s strength of late continues. This chart is as of yesterday’s close. The dollar is up strongly again this morning, which has the Dollar Index now above 77 at the moment this morning.
The dollar strength supports our recent sell signal and taking of our double-digit profits from gold.
Will the strength in the dollar also have an effect on the stock market?
Please scroll down to see other recent ‘Interesting Charts of the Morning’.
To read my weekend newspaper column ‘Gold Lost Its Glitter in a Hurry – Again!’ click here!
Subscribers: There is an important Special Report and hotline in the subscribers’ area of the website from Sunday. And the new issue of the newsletter will be out tomorrow!
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