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Daily Market Update – December 1, 2016 (Close) It’s December and we are sitting right at all time highs. OK, maybe the S&P 500 wasn’t paying attention today, but how about that DJIA? If your portfolio has energy and commodities in it, you are doing far better than anyone else, although if you had them last year, as I did, you would have said close to the opposite. Put it all together, year building upon year, and some of those things work out, especially if there are little cushions like option premiums and dividends along the way. Those make it easier to wait out what we all know are cycles. What we never know is when a cycle begins nor ends, nor do we ever know its length. Who, in the face of a worldwide economy that wasn’t really shrinking, ever believe that energy prices would go so low and then stay so low for so long? But that’s what it is as we are now again faced with oil above $50. We again will see whether it can stabilize above that level or whether increased supply will push price lower again. What may be different this time is that the market has reason to go up or down on its own merits and not solely on the price of oil, as it had dome through so much of the past year. As December comes around and the year comes to its end, we just have to watch and see what the FOMC does, but probably more importantly what will be said in its statement and what kind of things are said at the subsequent Chairman’s press conference. After that, it’s just a case of waiting to see if corporate profits do follow the path that it looks as if they may finally take and whether or not our new President can move his agenda forward. I for one, am looking forward to 2017, despite a very satisfying 2016 in the market. The countdown begins today and maybe tomorrow brings us a taste of what the rest of 2016 may hold. . |
