Blain here, quick note, for those of you who have iPads, I highly recommend downloading the new Top Stocks by MarketSmith app. I wrote up a full review just this morning and among other features, the app gives access to MarketSmith charts for free. Most certainly worth a look!
Thursday's market was the anthithesis of Tuesday's market as George Costanza rules. Tuesday a spate of good economic news was met with sharp selling; today a spate of poor economic news was met with buying. Somewhere George is smiling to himself. The S&P 500 was up 1%, while the NASDAQ gained 1.4%. Oil had its best day in weeks which led the turnaround as a lot of beaten down sectors such as mining and semiconductors finally found a bid.
Durable goods, a revision downward in GDP for the second quarter, and a drop in pending home sales all were negative economic data points. However, a formal document stating a 2013 budget and some economic reforms out of Spain (widely expected) seemed to calm markets or at least provide an excuse to bounce from oversold levels.
As for the indexes, after about a 3% correction the S&P 500 is back into its ascending channel and has worked off its overbough condition.
The NASDAQ, while more choppy, had much broader participation than it had seen in weeks as it wasn't just the Apple or Google show.
What U.S. city do you think finished first in Businessweek's 2012 survey? Hint: think bridges.
