I know it is no longer the weekend, but the intent was that this article would have been posted Saturday morning at Investools.com. Enjoy.
Updated Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, pre market
Friday's Close for May 2nd, 2008
by Jeff Kohler
It's a Friday night and I find myself ready to relax from an exhausting, exciting, and productive week. Yet joyfully, here I am. Let's re-cap what has been accomplished over the last week:
This was a particularly important week for the market as the focus shifted from corporate profits to an "all eyes on the Fed" event on Wednesday. The fed funds rate and the discount rate were both cut by .25 basis points, and after positive news on GDP, personal spending, factory orders and employment numbers, the market is starting to believe that interest rates have reached their ultimate destination and the next move by the Fed will be to do nothing at all. If this is the case, the market will continue to respond in a bullish fashion.
As a result the dollar has strengthened, and commodity prices have slipped slightly this week. Gold is now trading at $858 per ounce and oil is trading north of $116 per barrel.
In the end, the result was a positive one as the markets finished higher on the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a 1.3% gain, while the broader market, represented by the S&P 500, closed out the week with a 1.1% gain. Technology continues to lead the way despite a horrendous earnings report from Sun Microsystems (JAVA -23%) on Friday. However, the NASDAQ still managed to finish with a 2.2% gain on the week.