It's The Economy Stupid: Market Close, Record Highs

The broader market indices all flirted with record closing highs today. The S&P 500 Index, the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, The Russell 3000 Index all were up today. In all likely hood the stock market will make it 4 months in a row this year with positive returns.   All this despite anemic profit growth by the publicly traded U.S. corporations.

 

So it’s all good except for the NASDAQ Composite.  It reached its high of 5048.62 on March 10^th of 2000 in the height of the Dot Com bubble (remember the term “new paradigm”?).  It still has “a ways” to go at 3307.  But it is a 12 year high for the NASDAQ.

 

Now, I have been doing this for “a while”.  The stock market doesn’t go straight up.  All these index returns are great for today.  But sooner or later (we are probably closer to sooner rather than later) the market is going to correct 5%, 10%, 15% or 20%.  At some point profit growth is going to matter again (see quip about Dot Com bubble).

 

Of course, now that I’ve actually put this in writing I will probably be wrong.

 

Description	Ticker	Last	CHANGE	% Chg Today	Pct Chg 1Yr
STOCK MARKETS
Dow Jones Industrial Average	INDU Index	14818.750	106.2000	0.7218	12.1734
S&P 500 Index	SPX Index	1593.150	10.9100	0.6895	13.6816
S&P 400 Mid Cap Index	MID Index	1149.960	8.7600	0.7676	15.0831
S&P 600 Small Cap Index	SML Index	466.570	-2.3100	-0.4900	13.1986
NASDAQ 100 Index	NDX Index	2866.946	26.4000	0.9294	4.8550
NASDAQ Composite Index	CCMP Index	3307.020	27.7570	0.8464	7.9532
Russell 3000 Index	RAY Index	946.800	6.7500	0.7180	14.0189
Russell 1000 Index (Large Cap)	RIY Index	884.220	6.2700	0.7142	14.0027
Russell 2000 Index (Small Cap)	RTY Index	942.420	7.1700	0.7666	14.2646
Wilshire 5000 Total Market	W5000 Index	16809.350	113.5600	0.6802	14.0753
TREASURIES	% Yield
3 Month Treasury	0.0507		0.0000	0.0000
6 Month Treasury	0.0811		-0.0050	-6.2500
2 Year Treasury	0.2072	99.836	0.0078	0.0078
5 Year Treasury	0.6759	99.758	0.0313	0.0313
10 Year Treasury	1.6616	102.984	-0.0469	-0.0455
30 Year Treasury	2.8618	104.891	-0.3750	-0.3562
ENERGY
Crude Oil, Brent Index	Brent Crude	103.720	0.5600	0.5428	-8.3480
Crude Oil, Louisiana Lt. Sweet	LA Lt Sweet	105.600	1.4500	1.3922	-13.6400
Natural Gas, Henry Hub Index	Nat Gas	4.383	0.1600	3.7888	31.0871
PRECIOUS METALS
Spot Gold $/oz	GOLD	1471.080	8.9900	0.6149	-11.5117
Spot Silver $/oz	SILVER	24.409	0.4140	1.7254	-22.2276
CURRENCIES
Euro	EUR Curncy	1.310	0.0072	0.5526	-1.0801
Japanese Yen	JPY Curncy	97.830	-0.2100	-0.2142	-18.5178
British Pound	GBP Curncy	1.550	0.0022	0.1422	-4.4906
Swiss Franc	CHF Curncy	0.937	-0.0056	-0.5940	-3.1483
Canadian Dollar	CAD Curncy	1.011	-0.0053	-0.5213	-2.4217
Chinese Renminbi	CNY Curncy	6.165	0.0000	0.0000	1.8589
FOREIGN INDICIES
FTSE 100 INDEX	UK	6458.020	31.6000	0.4917	11.7864
CAC 40 INDEX	FRANCE	3868.680	58.6300	1.5388	18.4434
DAX INDEX	GERMANY	7873.500	58.7400	0.7517	15.7643
NIKKEI 225 INDEX	JAPAN	13884.130	-41.9500	-0.3012	45.8281
HANG SENG INDEX	HONG KONG	22580.770	33.0600	0.1466	7.0472