Today’s close: up 3.21%
Does Obama have magical powers or what? First full day in office and it’s a moonshot. Caterpillar started out green, dipped a toe into the red and then fell in all the way before muscling its way up out of the mire to finish a full 5.4 percent higher than its low for the day. Full quote at Yahoo Finance.
Broader indexes were similarly upwardly mobile: Dow, up 3.51%; S&P 500, up 4.35%; Nasdaq, up 4.60%. Wrap-up at Market Watch.
If I were cynical — which I’m not because I’m all about he audacity of hope these days — I’d think the market wise guys tried to get all the fools to sell their stocks cheap yesterday so they could buy ’em up at a discount today because everybody knew there’d be an O-rally.
Caterpillar’s volume was below average and CAT underperformed the Dow by a pinch, suggesting today’s move was more relief rally than anything else. After all, if the No. 1 infrastructure poster child isn’t leading the charge higher, who would be?