Stocks End The Week With Light Volume Trading; Sharp Gains
U.S. stocks endured significant gains on Friday amid a report showing an expansion of the manufacturing sector for the month of June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) ended the trading day at 12,582.77 with a 5.4% weekly gain. The DJIA had its best performance since July 2009 (percentage basis) and its best performance since November 2008 (points basis). Treasuries performed inversely to the stock market, suffering its biggest weekly decline in two years. The 10-year treasury yield rose by .33 percentage point for the week, the largest weekly increase since August 2009, reaching 3.199% on Friday. This “bond-market selloff” was accompanied by relatively light trading volume, a common occurrence going into holiday weekends. Because of the reduced volume, trading days like Friday are not considered to portray an accurate picture of the market (both stocks and bonds).
Friday’s gains were triggered by less worrying over the state of the sluggish U.S. economy and the euro zone’s debt crisis. The positive reaction to Friday’s manufacturing report reflects market sentiment that the manufacturing sector’s growth will be an integral part in the strengthening of the U.S. economy. However many investors maintain that the gloomy prospects for the U.S. economy are still in place as the past few months investors have witnessed a less than stellar performance of the U.S. stock market. Leading up to this week the DJIA suffered a seven week loss in an eight week period. Nevertheless economic uncertainty remains due in part to several factors: Greece’s economic long-term outlook; the White House and Congressional dispute over the raising of the government’s debt ceiling leading up to a decision deadline, August 2nd (a deadline set by the U.S. Treasury department); the ending of the Federal Reserve’s QE2 bond buying program which injected $600 billion into financial markets.
– Shaun Hoyes
Article submitted by: Shaun Hoyes of the Capital Markets Lab (CML). To learn more about the Capital Markets Lab please visit https://business.fiu.edu/capital-markets-lab/.
