Friday, May 30, 2008

Markets mixed

Quiet week brought quiet trading. The Dow did little during the week ending just a few points below its start on Tues. Today Dow was just under water with advancers slightly ahead of decliners but NAZ was up 14 helped by the good earnings report from Dell (DELL), up 1.25. Economic news continued on the gloomy side with mixed earnings reports. The best part of the earnings reports comes from overseas & domestic business is soft at best.

Today oil was up a 73¢ to 127.35 in a week where large price swings have become common. The Treasury bond yield is back up over 4%, a level not seen since the end of last year. Some of the money from selling Treasuries has been used to buy junk bond funds to get their higher yields (a good 650 basis points above today's Treasury yield). The MLP index pull back from 300 to the 292 area where it settled. It rallied from the 265 a couple of months, nice move up, but still in the low end of trading range for the last 10 months. REITs, another group with high yields, were sluggish during the week. They still offer nice yields for the brave.

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