Stock Market
Dow Diary: No New Year’s Hangover For Me
Dear Diary,
Some people have a tough time getting back in the swing of things after a weekend of New Year’s festivities — especially on Wall Street, where folks take their hedonism seriously. Not so for me, though; my first outing of 2011 has been a successful one. I’m ringing in the new year with Read More
Dow Diary: Coasting on in to the New Year
Dear Diary,
Hard to explain today’s slim loss. Weekly jobless claims dipped below 400,000 today to hit a two-year low. Could the economy be turning around? A measure of Chicago manufacturing activity rose to levels it hasn’t seen since 1988, and according to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales are on Read More
Dow Diary: Bring On the Two Year Highs
Dear Diary,
It just keeps on getting better for me. For the second day in a row, I’m hitting a two-year high! Christmas is coming early to the financial exchanges. And it’s not without good reason. Third-quarter GDP numbers were revised upward today, and November existing home sales rose for the first time Read More
Dow Diary: Another Two-Year High!
Dear Diary,
Hey look at me! I’m at a two-year high. This level has a lot of emotional significance for me, because it is the result of a long, hard slog following the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And now it looks like I can put some of those credit crisis woes behind me. I’m also Read More
Morning Roundup: Follow That Hurd
- Mark Hurd, who left his job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard this summer amid allegations of sexual harrassment earlier this year, is now also under investigation for insider trading. It has not been a good year for Mark Hurd. [WSJ]
- Could a Wikileaks data dump about a major bank be a worse embarrassment Read More
Dow Diary: Curse These Card Regulations
Dear Diary,
I’m not talking about Christmas card etiquette, either. As complicated as that is, what worries me more is what’s going to happen to the credit card companies.
The regulators are once again on my tail, seemingly hell-bent on undermining American enterprise. Some holiday gift, right? I scoffed last Thursday about potential problems Read More
Dow Diary: Flat as a Punctured Tire
Dear Diary,
I had a flat day. My performance was as flat as a tire that just ran over a nail. It was as flat as the world before Pythagoras and Eratosthenes. It was flat like a bottle of soda that sat open in the sun too long. It was flat like a bad karaoke Read More
Dow Diary: FedEx Will Deliver Me From Evil
Dear Diary,
Good news! Maybe you didn’t know this, but FedEx is really important — not just to people who want to send baubles and trinkets across the globe, but also to me and much of corporate America. The reason is not too hard to grasp; when there’s a lot of economic activity, people tend Read More
Dow Diary: Yay for Tax Cuts, at Least for Now
Dear Diary,
Today was a bit of a zig-zaggy day (up in the morning, down in the afternoon, close to break-even at the close). Maybe today’s big dump of economic data has something to do with it. Mortgage applications were down last week; the housing market remains a mess, duh. The consumer price index Read More
