Six Straight Up Months for the S&P 500

You’d never know this by reading a lot of financial commentary but the S&P 500 is about to close out its sixth-straight monthly gain. The latest numbers show that 273 of the 500 companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings so far. Of those, 74% have beaten earnings expectations but 55% have missed sales expectations.

The government reported that personal income rose 0.2% last month. Personal spending was also up 0.2% in March, but that’s down from the big 0.7% rise in February. The next big report will be Friday’s jobs report. Economists forecast that the U.S. economy created 153,000 jobs last month.

The stock market is doing well this morning. The S&P 500 has been as high as 1,592 which is very close to an all-time high. I should also the note the impressive rally in bonds. On March 15th, the 10-year Treasury yielded 2% exactly. Today it’s down to 1.66%.

Shares of AFLAC ($AFL) got as high as $53.95 today. The stock was last above $54 in February.

Posted by on April 29th, 2013 at 11:36 am


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