Market performance this past week crossed two important marks:
1. Posting the first strong, positive week since
December 21, some five weeks ago; and
2. Achieving increases of 4.87 percent for the S&P500 and 4.39 percent for the DJIA, weekly gains not equaled since March 2003. The NASDAQs 3.75 percent uptick for the week, while smaller, nevertheless is the largest since August 2004.
To put these weekly changes in perspective, note that, since January 2000, the S&P surpassed this rate in only ten weeks, the DJIA bettered its gain in only 11 weeks, while the NASDAQ exceeded it more modest increase 49 times.
As for Wednesdays Feds rate cut, while the index prices turned down on that day, they moved higher on Thursday, one day after the announcement.
But as noted in Wednesdays analysis, they were able to move ahead the next day, consistent with the pattern since last October, when the market moved higher the day after the announcement in what is now four of the last five Fed Fund cuts. And that one exception took place last October.
DJIA .73 percent
NASDAQ .98 percent
S&P500 1.22 percent
Posted February 3,