The Market Today

Well, that was nice. The S&P 500 closed at 1242.80 today. We’re just 2.24 points from breaking the August 3 high and reaching a 41-month high.
Everybody joined in the fun today. The Nasdaq made a four-year high. Google (GOOG) broke through $400 a share. Believe it or not, Yahoo (YHOO) still has a higher P/E ratio. Oil made a five-month low, bonds rallied and the small-caps were up huge. The S&P Mid-Cap Index (^MID) closed at an all-time high. On a side note, that’s a little bit strange. When small stocks do better than large stocks, it’s typically rank-ordered, meaning the smallest do the best, the second smallest do the second best, all the way up to the biggest doing the worst. But now, the middies are leading the way.
The S&P 500 gained 0.94% and our Buy List was up 1.48%. Five of our stocks hit new highs, and two more are very close. But today wasn’t perfect. The Buy List is overweighted in medical supplies, one of the few sectors that got hit. Medtronic (MDT), Zimmer (ZMH) and Stryker (SYK) all closed lower. This is probably due to Medtronic’s earnings; Forbes has more. Progressive (PGR) said that its earnings in October fell 46% due to Katrina and Wilma. Also, Commerce Bancorp (CBH) rallied as the CEO said that the bank looks to double the number branches in New York City.
Gold continued to rally and it’s close to $500 an ounce. Platinum hit $1,000 an ounce. Earlier this week, I predicted that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) would report earnings of 49 cents a share, three cents more than expectations. I was wrong. H-P earned 51 cents a share.

Posted by on November 17th, 2005 at 5:45 pm


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