Stock Market Update -Jan 17th

We got great earnings numbers from three DOW components, but the market sold off all three companies (AA, INTC, JPM) -this might be an indication of things to come next week! All the bearish Options traders were taken out this month as their 'puts' expired worthless yet again.


New unemployment claims for the week came in at 444,000.
Two more banks were shutdown this week! (list).

Next week: We have a short week. Lots of earnings reports this week including:
AXP, BAC, C, GS, MS, GE, GOOG, IBM

Market commentary: This week's market action will be mostly driven by earnings reports. Investor's sentiment is extremely high at this point, and may be a good contrarian indicator. The market may be finally topping out here for a short correction.

Commodities:
Oil prices topped out around $84, dropping all week to close around $78 per barrel.
Natural Gas dropped a bit, closing around $5.70.
Gold prices were up and down, closing mostly unchanged around $1140.
The US Dollar index gained some strength on Friday, closing just over 77.
Bond prices were up for the week. closing just over $117.

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