Best week for stocks in 4 months

An afternoon rally gave stocks their 4th straight day of gains. Dow was up 53, advancers over decliners 2-1 & NAZ rose 5. The S&P 500 had its best week since the week ending Nov 28.

Banks have come a long way off their bottom last Fri. After being down much of the day, the S&P 500 FINANCIALS INDEX climbed back to end with a gain, bringing the total to 28 for the week (off it's low). Another way to look at it is they are 400 below the highs reached 2 years ago & who knows when they will see 500+ again?

Value 109.41

Change +0.34

% Change +0.3%

Wish I had taken may advice a week ago about Citi when I said if you don't mind playing with fire, this call @ 1 can be a good gamble. I don't like playing with fire, so I didn't. But those who did have had a very nice week. Citi, a Dow stock which is really a call with an extended life, is shown below, the week before & last week. Of course, Las Vegas Sands,(LVS), another kind of financial which has been fighting off bankruptcy rumors for months, also had a very nice week. Maybe there is a connection between the 2. One is obvious, a share of LVS is worth far more than a share of Citi.

Citigroup ---- 2 weeks





Las Vegas Sands --- 2 weeks




The Alerian MLP Index fell pennies giving it a very good week, up 20 points as shown in the Yahoo badge on the right sidebar. There were also big gains for REITs & junk bond funds, again coming off deeply depressed prices. Meanwhile the VIX, dropped 10 points on reduced market worries. Today oil dropped $1 ahead of the OPEC meeting, as traders didn't want to place bets prior to the announcement.


Finance ministers are meeting in UK to discuss repairing the global banking system. Unfortunately, it began with the China minister warning the US about not trying to spend it's way out the recession (mentioned in my prior post) even though China is doing that with a huge spending package already announced. The difference is they are the largest creditor of the US while the amount of China debt that the US holds is minimal (if any).

• G-20 finance officials meet amid policy divisions- AP

Larry Summers, White House National Economic Council Director, explains what he calls "the boldest economic program to promote recovery and expansion in two generations." Very little mention is made of pork & pet projects designed to make pols feel good. There will be more regulation of derivatives. He said the crisis took years to make the problems, so they will not be solved quickly.

•White House Seeks to Reassure China U.S. Budget Deficits Are Under Control


Dow is solidly above 7k. Next week will tell us if the rally has legs.