What a way to start the new year.
Not even close to the way 2016 started, but then again, 2016 wasn’t all that bad.
Right?
For a little while it looked as if 2017 was going to start off with a major disappointment as the market decided to do something that it hadn’t done for a while.
In fact, it hasn’t really happened since we accepted the fact that we were getting someone very unexpected as our new President.
What happened today was that the stock market actually followed oil, again.
That was the story for most of 2016 and the story worked out pretty well, as long as you didn’t sell your oil losers in 2015, or repeatedly went back to the literal and figurative well in pursuit of the gains.
Even though there wasn’t too much evidence that the rise in oil prices was actually tied to increasing demand, the stock market just looked at a year of slowly, if not steadily increasing oil prices, as a good thing.
Who would have guessed?
Anyway, today, oil was sharply higher to start the day and so were stocks.
Then oil turned on a dime and so did stocks.
By the end of the day, though, the grip was broken and stock started the year with a triple digit gain.
Not bad, even as it was well off from its earlier highs.
I don’t think oil is going to be the big story in 2017.
Right now, the big story is what kind of a President are we going to get.
I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, but for all anyone knows, behind that bluster and his impolitic thoughts and Tweets, may be one of the smartest people ever to step foot into the White House.
Who knows?
That’s probably the point. No one knows.
But what we do know is that he will at least say the right things when it comes to the economy and business and he really said the right thing today regarding that unbelievable effort to escape oversight by an independent Ethics Committee by the congressional majority.
Imagine a new President, not even the President yet, telling his own party, whose support he can’t necessarily count upon, that there were far more important things to be done than to make yourselves look horrible.
Seems like a “no brainer,” but when it comes to politics you can never use logic.
So the next month, maybe the next 4 years could be on an all new play book that could keep everyone on their toes.
Friends and enemies, alike.
Maybe that’s the way to run a business and the way to run a country.
Obviously one day isn’t what trends are based upon, but it was really a nice start.
I
t was a good day to make some income generating trades without having to spend any money and it was a nice day to see some paper gains.
Even as 20,000 is still just a dream, we could go well beyond.
Hot air rises, but if that takes the markets higher and higher, I’m OK with the bluster.