Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year!
I trust you all had a great New Year and are now looking forward to 2007.
On the last day of trading for 2006 the SPX declined 6.40 to finish on 1418.30. We are nicely in the green.
2006 was a great year for anybody long. The SPX finished up just over 13.6% for the year!
What will 2007 bring? Despite what you may read, nobody really knows....least of all me! Traders and economists are hopeful for a soft landing and therefore hopeful that this bull run in equities will continue well into 2007. In my opinion this view is very much dependent upon interest rates cuts coming in March. If these cuts do not come you can expect these indexes to go down a lot quicker than they went up. And with the dollar so weak against all major currencies at the minute a rate cut looks unlikely as this is not the way to strengthen a currency! February will be a cautious month for us.
Anyway, this week will be a short week as the markets were closed today for New Years Day and will also be closed Tuesday 2nd January for a national day of mourning in the US for former President Gerald R. Ford, who died last week at age 93.
Key economic data comes out this week, the main data being the Fed minutes released on Wednesday and the jobs report on Friday. Both these reports have the power to move the markets if the contents throw up anything unexpected.
Let's see what 2007 will bring.
Until next time.
On the last day of trading for 2006 the SPX declined 6.40 to finish on 1418.30. We are nicely in the green.
2006 was a great year for anybody long. The SPX finished up just over 13.6% for the year!
What will 2007 bring? Despite what you may read, nobody really knows....least of all me! Traders and economists are hopeful for a soft landing and therefore hopeful that this bull run in equities will continue well into 2007. In my opinion this view is very much dependent upon interest rates cuts coming in March. If these cuts do not come you can expect these indexes to go down a lot quicker than they went up. And with the dollar so weak against all major currencies at the minute a rate cut looks unlikely as this is not the way to strengthen a currency! February will be a cautious month for us.
Anyway, this week will be a short week as the markets were closed today for New Years Day and will also be closed Tuesday 2nd January for a national day of mourning in the US for former President Gerald R. Ford, who died last week at age 93.
Key economic data comes out this week, the main data being the Fed minutes released on Wednesday and the jobs report on Friday. Both these reports have the power to move the markets if the contents throw up anything unexpected.
Let's see what 2007 will bring.
Until next time.
# posted by Paul @ 5:40 PM 
