Oil Takes Off
Wow, what a day of market activity. Oil took off and broke all records – the biggest increase in one day (over $10) and a NEW HIGH of $138.54. Gasoline just tagged along for the wild ride.
The Dollar took it in the ear when oil took off. The Euro jumped over 2 cents today, and the Yen finally started to increase in value too.
Bonds were the traditional “safe haven” for money, and interest rates fell about 0.10%.
Stocks were in turmoil the entire day, trying to get out of the way of oil, gasoline and a falling dollar. Stocks ended down 395 points – over 3% drop in one day. Naturally, stocks were driven by the bad economic news too.
In the news today….
Unemployment rose to 5.5% with a loss of 49,000 jobs. This is the biggest jump in unemployment since 1986. So far this year, 324,000 jobs were lost.
The total number of unemployed increased 858,000 last month to a total of 8,500,000 people.
An Israeli cabinet minister, and a potential replacement for the embattled current prime minister, said that options are running out on dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat. Only military action appears to be available to solve the problem, and military action by Israel could only happen with US support. (That hit oil prices too, naturally.)
Here are today’s numbers:
Dow Jones 30 Industrial – 12,210 (down 395 points)
10 Year Treasury Bond – 3.94% (down 0.09%)
Euro – 1.5772 – the big mover today again.
Gold – $899 (up $24) – I hope some of you bought gold yesterday on my “buy” message.
NEW HIGH
Oil – $138.54 (up $10.75) – WOW!!!!! I thought yesterday was big, but today was BIG.
NEW HIGH
Gasoline – $3.55 (up $0.21) – brace for MUCH higher gasoline prices.