Economic Data and Earnings Fuel Blue Chip Rally

The major benchmarks were all in the green following the end of the Fed’s bond buying program and got a boost from the better-than-expected third-quarter GDP growth of 3.5%.  Initial jobless claims came in slightly higher than expected at 287,000 but were still low enough to generate positive economic sentiment.  Strong quarterly earnings by Visa and MasterCard kicked off the day’s rally.

Market Radar - % Change

Nymex Crude Oil prices snapped a two-day winning streak dropping 1.31% to settle at $81.12 per barrel down $1.08.  Gold prices fell for the fifth session out of six slipping $26.3 or 2.15% to settle at $1,198.6 per ounce.

All of the major indexes saw gains on the day with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:DJI) up for the fourth straight session after surging 221.11 points to close at 17,195.42 up 1.3%.  The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:GSPC) closed at 1,994.65 up 12.35 points or 0.62%.

After spending most of the morning in negative territory the NASDAQ Composite (NASDAQ:IXIC) ended the session at 4,566.14 up 0.37% or 16.91 points.  The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 also spent most of the day negative before rallying back into positive territory gaining 10.09 points to close at 4,100.64 up 0.25%.

The Small cap Russell 2000 saw strong gains climbing 9.41 points to close at 1,155.77 up 0.82%.  The Fox 50 climbed 0.22% gaining 3.04 points to close at 1,404.55.