Robert Barone

The equity market continued on a roll this week with both the DJIA and the S&P 500 closing at new historic highs on Friday (October 11 th ). For the week, all four major indexes were up around the +1% level.

It was a quiet week in the financial markets with the major indexes up about 1% (the small cap Russell 2000 was up almost 2%). No market moving news, so the markets crawled higher.

It was a down week for most of the major indexes with only the Nasdaq managing to keep its head slightly above water.

The changes for the week in the major equity indexes were negative; and the indexes showed significant volatility.

The Dow Jones gained more than 1500 points on Wednesday after Trump won the 270 electoral votes needed to become the 47 th President of the United States, and the volume was twice the normal level.

The equity markets were flat to down all week, perhaps digesting the upturn after the election. After all, year to date, equities are up in the 20% range.

The Magic of Seasonal Adjustment The macroeconomic data, like GDP and Retail Sales, tell us that the economy is still healthy.

Financial markets waited all week for the jobs data, and that data did not disappoint. Like in the Goldilocks tale, the jobs numbers weren't too hot, nor too cold.

Despite the highly anticipated 25 basis point (0.25 percentage point) reduction in the Fed Funds Rate announced by the Fed on Wednesday, financial

Three of the four major market indexes were down about one-half percent for the New Year's week (ending January 3 rd ), with the small cap Russell