Well, those of you expecting a post-election rally got two of them - one yesterday, and another one today. Only problem was that they were the same rally, after the give-back of yesterday afternoon. Good news today was that some of the rally held, but some was given back yet again as a move up in crude oil prices helped blunt some of the enthusiasm seen after the election became a done deal.
The Dow hung on to triple-digit gains, moving up 101 (1.0%) to finish at 10137. The S&P 500 gained 12 points (1.1%) to 1143 and the Nasdaq gained 19 (1.0%) to close just above the 2000 level at 2004. Volume was strong on the day.
Market internals were strong, with advances leading declines by almost 3 to 1 on the NYSE and more than 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq. The morning run-up produced more than 500 new highs, compared to only 40 new lows on the day.
Too many winning groups to name them all, but the biggest winners were the biotechs (+3.6%). Some previous losers were winners today too, with health care up 3.1%, health care products up 2.8%, oil services and drugs each up 2.7%. Gold tacked on 2.4% after a string of down days. The only real losing group was the semiconductors, which fell by 1.0%.
This market is starting to look pretty overbought at this point - BMB also finds it somewhat interesting how easily the market was knocked back off its highs each of the last two days. Could be a bit of a pullback in the works here soon — but what the heck do I know? I’m just some guy writing a bunch of B.S. on a blog somewhere…
