Oil

Stocks continued their upward momentum with some benchmarks hitting new record highs. Sentiment was driven by initial jobless claims numbers which at 285,000, remained under the key 300,000 level for the eighth week in a row. The markets also responded positively to European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi’s commitment to continuing stimulus efforts.

Oil accelerated a months-long slump after Saudi Arabia, looking to counter the American shale boom, cut its prices for U.S. buyers.

The Dow and S&P 500 booked record highs Friday in reaction to the Bank of Japan’s surprise decision to expand stimulus measures.

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.

The markets were green across the board today following the better than expected October Consumer Confidence numbers which hit a seven year high and overshadowed an unexpected drop in durable goods orders. Positive quarterly earnings reports continue to bolster the markets ahead of tomorrow’s Fed meeting release, which is expected to indicate a continuation of market friendly interest rates.

Coming off of last week’s best performance of the year, stocks were mostly muted and mixed ahead the FOMC meeting scheduled for later this week. September pending home sales came in slightly below economist estimates but data indicated the first year-over-year gain in the past 11 months.

Positive quarterly earnings reports continued to rally the US equity markets with results from Dow components Microsoft and Procter & Gamble further boosting the benchmark indexes.  New Home Sales came in slightly below economist expectations but remained at six-year highs fueling investor optimism.

U.S. markets surged following positive economic data out of China and after September’s U.S. existing home sales reached a new one year high. Apple’s strong quarterly results were more than enough to overcome disappointing numbers from Coca-Cola and McDonalds driving the markets to strong gains on the day.

Despite European markets sliding and IBM’s earnings miss weighing on the Dow, the major benchmarks continued upwards from Friday’s gains and were all in the green ahead of Apple’s quarterly earnings.

U.S. benchmarks rebounded today following European indexes higher and after a number of positive earnings reports including Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Honeywell and Schlumberger.  Markets were further buoyed by better than expected housing starts which saw a 6.3% rise in September.

U.S. markets picked up where they left off yesterday opening lower despite better than expected initial jobless claims data.  Stocks began climbing after St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard commented that the Fed should delay the end of its quantitative easing program.

After sharp losses early Thursday, stocks reversed course as traders reacted positively to comments from Federal Reserve officials.

The equity markets sold off following a clobbering of the major European indexes with significant intraday losses across the U.S. benchmarks.  Lower than expected results on retail sales and PPI combined with the report of a second health care worker infected with Ebola pushed stocks lower while the VIX volatility index hit its highest point since December 2011.  An afternoon rebound saw the major indexes well off their lows or into positive territory.

Stocks pared significant losses Wednesday, but still closed deep in negative territory, as disappointing economic reports reignited growth worries.

If you were long the market the past week, it was most definitely a stomach turner.

Stocks continued a volatile run Thursday as concerns over global growth ignited a sharp selloff.

Better than expected initial jobless claims data was not enough to overcome a wave of negative sentiment as the markets gave up Wednesday’s gains following pessimistic comments by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi. The Energy sector was particularly hard hit as crude oil process continued to sink lower.

While crude oil continued its downward slide on EIA Inventories, stocks which had been bouncing back and forth earlier got a major boost after the FOMC Minutes showed the Fed could be more cautious in raising rates on continuing economic weakness concerns.

Stocks fell for the second day ahead of tomorrow’s Fed notes and after the International Monetary Fund released their World Economic Outlook report which downgraded the growth outlook for Europe and Japan and warned on the market impact of raising interest rates and geopolitical unrest.

With the major benchmark indexes coming off two weeks of losses, stocks opened higher following Friday’s rally but despite there being no new data, the markets slid into negative territory in the late morning ahead of third quarter earnings and continuing interest rate jitters.