The Market Today

This was a sluggish day for the market. The S&P 500 lost 0.50% and our Buy List fell 0.43%. For December, the Buy List is beating the S&P 500 1.74% to 0.63%. Today, only five of our stocks were up and 20 were down. The big winner was Stryker (SYK) which announced that it raised its dividend by 22%, from nine cents a share to 11 cents.
Here’s a follow-up for you. It was five weeks ago that Brown & Brown (BRO) was downgraded by Sandler O’Neill. That day, the stock fell from $27.86 to $26.94. Today the stock closed at $29.56. Overall, financial stocks were the laggards today. Commerce Bancorp (CBH) fell 2.8%, Progressive (PGR) lost 1.1% and AFLAC (AFL) lost 1.0%
Gold rose today for the seventh time in eight sessions. The metal is now up to $517.80. Many investors believe that the price of gold is an indicator of future inflation. Historically, it has been but I’m skeptical of the relationship now. Gold has become very popular with investors in the emerging economies of China and India.
Copper, however, is a different story. The metal jumped to an all-time high of $2.0315 a pound. There’s concern that railroad workers in Chile are going to go on strike. Copper has been a much better bellwether of the economy.
There aren’t many earnings announcements right now. In two weeks, one of my favorite stocks, Biomet (BMET), reports its earnings. How’s this for a consensus? There are 24 analysts who have forecasts. The highest is 43 cents a share. The lowest is 42 cents a share.
And finally, Boston Scientific (BSX) said that it expects to sign a definitive merger agreement with Guidant (GDT) by the end of December and to close the deal in the first quarter of 2006.

Posted by on December 7th, 2005 at 6:10 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.