The Market On Friday

Good morning and welcome to the weekend. It is 32 degrees and we have light snow here in Upstate NY. A neighbor commented on the snow earlier, I paraphrase, "What is that white stuff falling out of the sky? Pollen?" The snow-less wonder Winter of '12 has made us forget that last year at this time we were up to our eyeballs in snow.

At 8:20 a.m. futures are up (pushing the possible DOW over 13K again), the dollar is mostly down against major world currencies, and the price of oil is higher going out of sight. Look for higher and higher gas prices if this nonsense continues. This is about greed, plain and simple. There's no fundamental reason why oil should be this high considering the quantities available and the stockpiles already out there.

Barely a mention of the eurozone crisis today as investors look for further signs that the US economy is improving. My favorite, consumer sentiment data comes through today along with data on housing. Long story short, its expected to be improving.

Let me recap. The DOW is about to go beyond 13,000. That is a very high number approaching the all time high hit a few years back, it went slightly over 14,000. All I can say is what gives. The economy is still a mess, everyone knows that, unemployment is way too high, houses have lost tremendous value, foreclosures continue, etc etc etc. In short it's all still a mess, yet the DOW is approaching record highs as if everything was percolating like crazy. Could it be that Wall Street has figured out that 20% of the population can be homeless and it doesn't affect their bottom-line especially if the top 1% own more and more of the total equity base.

CNN: Stocks: Eyes on the economy

Economic reports on tap for Friday include consumer sentiment and new-home sales, where investors hope for continued signs of momentum in the U.S. economy.


Oil for April delivery rose 52 cents to $108.35 a barrel.