Financial Review with Sinclair Noe
DOW + 2 = 16,945
SPX – 0.48 = 1950
NAS + 1 = 4338
10 YR YLD + .02 = 2.63%
OIL – .22 = 104.19
GOLD + 7.90 = 1260.90
SILV + .13 = 19.29
The Dow Industrial Average hit another record high close; the fourth consecutive record. How did the Dow manage to move higher? Who knows? It wasn’t a big move but any positive results in a new record. How now Dow? Maybe it has something to do with the Federal Reserve and the other central bankers vacuuming up all the toxic detritus from the world of finance, pushing rates to sub-zero; leaving investors with little choice but a move to equities. Maybe global corporations have found a way to squeeze extra value out of a bone dry economy. Maybe the major indices have entered a cosmic wormhole devoid of common sense.
Today’s case in point is Uber, which is an app designed to connect riders with cars and drivers; which sounds a lot like hailing a taxi, but this is different because you can hail the taxi and pay the taxi with your smartphone; which means it’s software that eats taxis. Uber is different mainly because it is worth about $18 billion; which means it is worth more than most of the companies in the S&P 500 index. It’s an equity party, and for now at least, nobody is turning out the lights.
Friday’s jobs report was run of the mill; the economy added 218,000 jobs and the unemployment rate held steady at 6.3%. Today, we get a positive follow-up from the Labor Department, saying there were 4.7 million hires in April, the most since June 2008. By comparison, before the financial crisis, we averaged about 5.04 million hires per month. And workers’ opportunities look to be improving, too. There were 4.46 million job openings in April, the most since September 2007, up 17% from a year earlier.
OPEC is meeting in Vienna this week. The oil production cartel, which controls about 40% of global oil supplies, has imposed a 30 million barrel-per-day production ceiling for all 12 members’ output for the last two years. And the current price range of $100 to $110 a barrel seems to be the sweet spot; not too high to reduce demand; not too low to cover costs and national budgets. North American crude oil production is expected to be a major topic of discussion.
