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Money supply aggregates surge in the latest week and M2 growth hits new 11-3/4 year high of +9.4%All 3 money supply aggregates posted strong gains in the week ended Dec 21st: M1 +$14.9 billion, M2 +$18.7 bln, and M3 +$15.4 billion. Year-on-year growth in the widely-watched M2 aggregate accelerated to +9.3% from the previous week's +9.2% y/y gain. That marked the strongest increase in M2 growth in 11-3/4 years. |
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US Stock MarketThe US stock market opened little changed last Thursday, traded lower for most of the session, and then surged into the close to finish mixed. Settlements: Dow Industrials 93.21 at 9181.43, DJH99 75 at 9265, Dow Utilities +1.38 at 312.30, OEX 3.30 at 604.03, S&P 500 2.70 at 1229.23, SPH99 +3.40 at 1245.50, NASDAQ Composite +25.74 at 2192.69, and the Russell 2000 +10.05 at 421.96. |
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The Dow fell 1.0% last Thursday followed by the S&P 500 down 0.2%. Meanwhile, the Russell 2000 jumped +2.4% and the NASDAQ rose +1.2% on the day. For the month of December, the NASDAQ surged +12.5%, the Russell 2000 rose +6.1%, the S&P 500 gained +5.6%, and the Dow edged up +0.7%. During 1998, the NASDAQ rocketed +39.1%, the S&P 500 advanced +26.7%, and the Dow increased +16.1%. The Russell 2000 lagged badly with a 3.5% loss, but recovered from the 30.5% year-to-date loss that the index suffered on its October 8th 2-3/4 year low. |
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Stock market breadth was strongly bullish last Thursday with advancing issues (2,315) leading declining issues (781) by a 3 to 1 margin. Volume for last Thursday's NYSE session was 639 million shares with declining volume accounting for 30% of the total. The percentage of NYSE stocks above their 200-day moving averages remained at a 5-month high of 38%. On September 1st, the percentage posted a 7-1/3 year low of 14% where it was down sharply from April's reading of 68%. The number of shares posting new 52-week highs (407) exceeded the number posting new 52-week lows (283). |
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Bullish factors included (1) a surge in small-cap issues ahead of the seasonably-favorable month of January, (2) upward mo- |
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