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For Thursday February 1, 2007  

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Dow +98.38 at 12621.69, Nasdaq +15.29 at 2463.93, S&P +9.42 at 1438.24

The game of the day was the Fed announcement and they left rates unchanged at 5.25% for a fifth straight time. In the statement they did say,  "the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain...." so they were not too worried it seems.

The game part of it is the way CNBC build it up so much. It was not too many years ago when you would read about these things the next day instead of live. At 5.25% if they raised or lowered a quarter percent it would make virtually no difference in any stock price in a rational way but only in perception.

Anyway for today the statement started  a rally.

This 5-min chart of the Dow shows what happened. At the initial release (the chart time is a bit off I think)  the Dow dropped to 12545 at 2:10 pm then in the next 10 minutes went to 12610 where it was above the top Bollinger band so pulled back for two candles then started back up. It did today get over 12650 so a gain of 105 points from the first announcement.

I found this next chart an interesting one as it looks quite like a reverse head and shoulders but cannot believe that consumer confidence can get so high as to make it "break out"

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index came in at 110.3 for January- maybe too high?

This shows the strength of the economy in the forth quarter. Consumption Expenditure were up 4.4% in the fourth quarter, significantly faster than the 2.8% rate in the third quarter.

January is now closed and we had 104 stocks hit their buy point. That is amazing. Out of those all but 9 closed on the first day higher than the buy price. The average gain on each if 1,000 shares were bought was $513 and if sold at the high of the day or if sold at the close the average gain was $352 each. This brought the total for all trades of 1,000 shares each to $53,421 for selling at the high and $36,676 if you work and bought only on buy orders on the buy price and sold at the end of the day. I do not imagine that anyone bought all the stocks that became a buy but you sure had a plentiful selection.

The Dow today closed a breath away from the former high. It has not really done much in a couple of months so may get legs but on this chart I have a Fibonacci line that could stop it at 12710 only as the lower lines then line up well.

The transportation index broke above its lower level and for almost sure will try to make it to the next.