Friends,

Well, the Santa Claus rally (the last 5 trading days of the year plus the first 2 trading days of the new year) was looking like a dud, but today’s move higher helped the jolly guy in the red suit save a little face. Of course, I didn’t have over the weekend military action on my bingo card sparking a rally. Everything seemed to move higher today, stocks, metals, crypto.

By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 594 points to finish the day at 48,977. The S&P 500 was up 43 points to close at 6,902. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 160 points to close at 23,395. Gold was up $121 to trade at $4,450 per ounce, while oil was up $.99 to trade at $58.31 per barrel WTI.

It’s hard to say whether stocks were going to move higher today regardless of the action in Venezuela, but I kind of think they were. Remember, we had drifted lower into year end and I think some folks were looking to do some buying. Let’s see if the bulls have something cooking or was this just a one day reaction rally?

Stay tuned.

Have a nice evening everyone.