Daily Investment Interpretations

November 18, 2008

2008-11-18:  The stock market taunted us today. The NASDAQ rose 1.22 points (0.08%) to 1,483. The Dow added 151.17 points (1.83%) to 8,425. The S&P 500 advanced 8.37 points (0.98%) to 859. Oil ended unchanged at $54.42. Gold dropped to $732.70. The VIX dropped a bit to $67.64.
    Note that the S&P hit 827 an hour before the closing bell, followed bya 32-point hike in the last hour of the trading day.
    The main  news was a record 2.8% fall for U. S. inflation: However, excluding a 0.2% decline in food prices and a 12.8% drop in energy prices, core, producer prices rose 0.4% in October. The best guess is that this 0.4% increase in the core rate of producer price inflation is the last gasp of previous commodity price hikes:  Record 2.8% fall for U.S. wholesale inflation.