Posted on 12/03/2014 5:51:56 PM PST by SeekAndFind
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Big gains in energy, materials and industrials sectors, following a rebound in oil and gold prices, helped propel the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average to record levels on Wednesday.
The S&P 500 SPX, +0.38% both set an intraday record and closed at a record for the 48th time this year, after gaining 7.77 points, or 0.4%, to 2,074.32.
Most of the gains on the benchmark index came from materials, industrials and energy sector stocks, with all three sectors rising more than 1%. Cimarex Energy Co XEC, +5.12% , Pitney Bowes Inc. PBI, +4.77% and Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. DO, +3.59% were among top gainers, rising 5.1%, 4.8% and 3.6% respectively.
Analysts cautioned that oil prices and energy names could face headwinds in the future, after spell of buying.
Scott Wren, senior equity strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors, said the fall in prices [related to oil and energy] is likely not done yet and that his research team has an even-weight recommendation on the sector.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.18% also set an intraday record and closed at an all-time high for the 33rd time in 2014. The blue-chip index added 33.07 points, or 0.2%, to 17,912.62.
The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.39% ended the day 18.66 points, or 0.4%, higher at 4,774.47. Small-cap stocks outperformed large-cap stocks, with the Russell 2000 RUT, +0.90% gaining 10.55 points, or 0.9%, to 1,179.01. However, year-to-date, small stocks have been lagging behind their large counterparts, as the index is up only 1.3%, compared to a 12.2% gain in the S&P 500.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Total price: a little more than $16.
The high Dow is just inflation.
Is there a pool on when the dow pops $18,000?
No pool needed.
18,000 Dow by year’s end.
Count on it.
I guess this helps our retirement funds.
The rising DOW is a reflection of the weakening dollar. It isn’t that stocks are fantastic, just that the intrinsic value of companies is the same when translated to weak dollars; it takes many more dollars to reflect the same intrinsic value now versus years before. Or as another poster said in one word - inflation.
Strange, for months they have talked about the strengthening dollar helping to lower oil prices.
U.S. Dollar Index (DXY)
If you were say the owner of a shop in Brussels or perhaps a denist in Osaka and have built up a sizeable chunk of assets, where would you reinvest the money to get it out of harms way?
The answer is America. It would be easy to sit at your computer and buy shares in an American mutual fund to send at least part of your hard earned assets out of harms way.
And wish you had done so in July...
"They". Maybe "they" have it backwards. Fracking led to a boom in oil supplies, causing oil prices to drop. Many folks think of oil in terms of gasoline and diesel. However, thousands of products are made from oil. A few are plastics, fertilizers, animal feed, lubricants, makeups, asphalt for roads, roofing materials, paints, etc. A drop in oil prices drops the cost of ingredients in products, leading to a strengthening of profits and employment, and the drop in fuel prices eases transportation costs. The dollar is still losing value, as seen by rises in food and other costs. But that is temporarily offset by lowered oil prices for reasons I stated.
Actually, since summer, there is little question the dollar has gotten stronger.
What does a list of petroleum products have to do with the dollar gaining strength?
Here is an interesting take on oil refining, not all of which I agree with, but has some truth. That oil companies don’t make money on gasoline, but make their money on all the other products made from oil. Which in turn helps drive the economy (my take). The author says oil companies are charging us to take gasoline off their hands as a by-product and gettiing large revenue from it. My take is that its the government that gets large revenue from gasoline sales. All those people who think shifting to solar power or wind turbines would get us off oil are full of crap, because taking us off oil would be a disaster for the economy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-drobny/the-real-economics-of-oil_b_24108.html
The author is a fool.
I've been part of refinery process unit evaluations. We spend billions of dollars in the US to MAXIMIZE gasoline production. It is the reason the US creates significantly more gasoline per barrel of oil compared to Europe, who uses more diesel.
Not sure how any of this relates to our discussion...
Mark Finley, BP America's general manager of global energy markets and US economics, said in an e-mail reply to a question from CNBC that "oil prices are primarily driven by oil market supply and demand fundamentals, rather than movements in the dollar—as is evident by the recent decline coming amid weak global demand and strong growth in US production."
Some analysts already see a shift underway in the traditional relationship between crude and the dollar. In a March research report, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said with the U.S.'s growing energy independence was causing the negative correlation between the dollar and oil to ease.
"If you're producing more and more here and you're doing exporting, the strong dollar effect is reduced quite a bit," said Richard Hastings, a macro strategist at Global Hunter Securities. "You could look it as a hedge or a buffer…but it avoids the import/export currency effect that brings into focus the stronger dollar."
So now you agree the dollar is growing stronger and not losing value as you first stated?
I won’t go that far. I’ll agree with your point that the dollar is growing stronger. Okay, good arguments. But I stated “The dollar is still losing value, as seen by rises in food and other costs.”. That much is true.
I don’t understand the dollar is growing stronger and is still losing value. But good enough.
Cheers
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.