Gold, the dollar, and stock market remain decoupled.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010. 9:15 am.
The popular opinion was that the gold, U.S. dollar, and the stock market could not all move in the same direction.
But that is exactly what they have been doing. And this morning once again gold and the dollar are both up in pre-market trading, and stock futures are also positive.
Yesterday in the U.S. stock market.
A rally from the open until 11 a.m. then a sideways drift, on low volume.
Yesterday’s intraday chart:
The Dow closed up 78 points, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 closed up 1.0%. The NYSE Composite closed up 0.9%. The Nasdaq closed up 1.6%. The Russell 2000 closed up 2.2%. The DJ Transportation Avg. closed up 0.8%.
Asian markets closed mixed last night.
Among individual countries:
Australia closed up 0.3%. China closed down 0.3%. Hong Kong closed down 0.7%. India closed up 1.9%. Japan closed up 0.5%. Singapore closed down 0.1%. South Korea closed up 1.3%. Taiwan closed up 0.3%.
If you’d like to see a three-month chart of these indexes and others, click here, and then click on any of the markets in the list at the left side of the page it takes you to.
Note; Our data-feed comes in automatically from Reuters and is doubled-checked with the data-feed from eSignal. Often when markets are closed they don’t show that but transmit the data from the last close. That’s why when you watch the tape on CNBC and websites, you often see that a market supposedly closed up or down the previous day, when in fact that market was closed for a holiday. That is why sometimes you see the same thing with our sampling of individual global market closes. It is the data from incoming data-feeds.
Markets this morning.
European markets are up again this morning, on average of about 0.8%.
Oil is up $.38 a barrel at $79.09.
Gold is up $2.90 an ounce at $1,121.
Markets in the U.S.
In the U.S., this week’s important economic reports continue to come out. To see the full schedule of the week’s reports click here, and look at the left side of the page it takes you to.
Last week it was that the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index plunged sharply in February; New Home Sales plunged 11% in January; Existing home sales fell 7.2%; Durable Goods Orders ex aircraft orders fell 0.6%; and unemployment claims rose 22,000 last week, the second straight weekly rise.
But the revision of 4th quarter GDP to 5.9% GDP growth from 5.7% was a positive, exactly in line with economists’ consensus estimate.
Yesterday the Personal Income & Spending report showed consumer incomes rose 0.1% in January, the smallest rise in four months, while spending rose 0.5%, the highest pace since May, 2008. And the ISM Mfg index declined to 56.5 in February from 58.4 in January. And Construction Spending fell again in January, down 0.6%.
There are no economic reports today, but auto-makers will be reporting their latest sales through the day.
And then tomorrow the important jobs reports begin with the ADP employment report.
Our pre-open indicators are positive, pointing to the Dow being up 40 points or so in the early going.
Stock Market Patterns.
The current pattern is the ‘Monthly Strength Period’, which was due to begin last Friday and to run through this Thursday (March 4). Its tendency to be positive is quite persistent in bull markets, not so often in bear markets.
Interesting Charts of the Morning.
Please scroll down to Friday and Saturday’s posts to see recent charts and commentaries.
To read my weekend newspaper column ‘Is the Stock Market Saying the Economy Will Remain Strong?’ click here!
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