Consumer Credit

Market Overview

The Fed closed six banks on Friday, though I think the market will shrug this information of off as part of the recovery process.  On the other hand, Economic news was mixed on Thursday even though a surprisingly sharp drop in the level of initial jobless claims boosted stocks initially.  The initial euphoria was damped by a fall in the ISM non-manufacturing index below the breakeven mark.  Late in the day, Bank of America weighed on financials with its huge equity offering—spurring concern that other banks might do the same.

As would be expected, much better-than-expected numbers for the November employment situation sent equities up sharply early in the day on Friday. But by close, stocks had come down significantly as many traders simply worried that equities have gotten too far ahead of economic conditions.  Also, the dollar jumped on the release of the jobs report and weighed on materials and energy sectors. Still, for the day and week, most indexes posted moderate to sizeable gains.

Equities were up this past week. The Dow was up 0.8 percent; the S&P 500, up 1.3 percent; the Nasdaq, up 2.6 percent; and the Russell 2000, up 4.4 percent.