How to Buy $86 Oil
It was another up week for the major stock market indices, the sixth in a row. The stock market’s current recovery rally is now more than a year old, and it continues to surprise with its strength and duration, largely on the back of better-than-expected earnings and some healing in the broader economy. This week the Dow rose 0.6%, the S&P 500 gained 1.4% and the Nasdaq tacked on 2.1%.
Next week the stock market has most of its usual banes and worries in place. Oil is heading smartly higher, almost to $90 a barrel, a potential cap on expansion. Earnings reports are pouring in, but they’re unlikely to produce further guidance ahead of expectations now that the easiest quarterly comparables are past.
Greece and its debt crisis are absorbing attention, but with the EU having caved and presented a bailout package it looks increasingly like Greece soon will go to the back burner (perhaps to be replaced by other debt-burdened EU countries).
Turning to economic indicators, on Wednesday Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to speak to the Joint Economic Committee, plus we have CPI and retail sales data. On Thursday we will see industrial output data, and on Friday March housing starts.
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As for earnings, next week we will see a bonanza of reports, including Alcoa(AA), Yum! Brands(YUM), Advanced Micro Devices(AMD), Google(GOOG) and General Electric(GE).
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