Saturday Night Quarterback says (on a Sunday), For the week ahead expect…

Saturday Night Quarterback says (on a Sunday), For the week ahead expect…

This week brings fourth quarter earnings reports from Microsoft (MSFT) on Tuesday, and Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB) on Wednesday to add fuel to the Big Tech rally. The NASDAQ 100, the home of big tech stocks, climbed 4.4% last week. Apple is expected to report record fourth quarter earnings. And that will certainly help technology stocks in general. But I’d also count the diversity of the companies reporting this week on the positive side of the ledger.

Today’s rally: Was it Biden or Netflix?

Today’s rally: Was it Biden or Netflix?

Today the Standard & Poor’s 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the NASDAQ Composite all hit record highs. Likely cause? The peaceful inauguration of Joe Biden as President? Yesterday’s report of blow out gains in subscribers in the fourth quarter from Netflix (NFLX)? While the sigh of relief that the country wasn’t enveloped in another wave of violence at the 46th President took the oath of office certainly played a role, my vote on causation today goes to yesterday’s news from Netflix that the company added 8.5 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, far ahead of Wall Street projections for 6.03 million added subscribers. Netflix shares closed up 16.85% today.

This week starts out like last week–down; will it end with a rally?

This week starts out like last week–down; will it end with a rally?

At the close today the Standard & Poor’s 500 was off 0.66%. The Dow Jones industrial Average was lower by 0.29%. The NASDAQ Composite had fallen 1.255 and the NASDAQ 100 had dropped 1.55%. The small cap Russell 2000 was down just 0.03%. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) finished with a loss of 1.33%. As you might conclude from those results from the indexes, the big culprit in today’s retreat was technology, especially big technology stocks.

Santa Claus rally adds another up day on December 31–with records on the S&P and Dow

Santa Claus rally adds another up day on December 31–with records on the S&P and Dow

The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.64% today to a new closing high and ended the year ahead more than 16%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also closed in record territory after a gain of 0.65% on the day. The Dow is up about 7% for 2020. The NASDAQ Composite managed a gain of 0.14% to bring its gain to 40% for 2020. Today’s advance in the Santa Claus period–which historically also includes the first two trading days in January so it’s not quite over yet–is a good omen for 2021.