After Friday's jaw-dropping 200 pt rally at 3.15 in New York, the
markets finished up for the day and up slightly for the week as well.
Yesterday, I thought the markets would not escape another negative day
but buyers came in at the close as the indices bounce off their support
levels yet again. The Dow finished at 12,381, up just 33 points for the
week while the S&P ended up at 1353, up just 4 points. While I can't be
proud of my intraday week daily forecasts, I can at least claim (just
barely) that our weekly outlook was correct again as the markets closed
higher although missing our target of 12,500/1360. We did test the
upper reaches of the support level (12,150/1330) through Friday's
trading but never fell through.
Tokyo finished the week down 1% as the Nikkei closed at 13,500 on the
nose. Again, my intraweek dynamics were not very accurate as Wednesday
was the worst day with the market closing at 13,300. Our forecast
called for a slight upweek came up short as well, so all in all, nothing
to write home about. Fortunately, I was less than enthusiastic about
the prospects so in the end we were not that divergent from the market's
final performance.
Bombay was down 4% for the week and finished at 17,349. The big down
days were Wednesday and Friday. Here I underestimated the negative
impact of the lunar eclipse and also placed too much positive value on
the approaching Venus-Mercury conjunction that will occur over the
weekend.
The Euro was our shining success story for the week as it finished
strong, closing at 1.4825 USD. Our intraweek revised forecast correctly
called the high on Friday, with the Euro touching 1.485. We had thought
1.48 was likely and 1.49 was possible, so that is well within range.
We also correctly forecast Monday as the big down day and Wednesday
afternoon as another decline.
We called gold's big run-up this week more or less on the money as gold
futures closed Friday at $944, up over $40. Monday was weak and prices
stagnated near $900. The rally really got going after that and our
price target of $920 was easily achieved. Our intraweek revised
forecast correctly called the Friday close between $940 and $950.
Our forecast for oil's rise was also correct, as crude futures got to
$101.32 Wednesday before settling back to under $99 on Friday. Our
daily forecasts still need some work however as we thought Wednesday
would be a down day. Next week should see $100 again if only temporarily.
