Dow jumped 224 (a little below session highs), decliners over advancers 5-4 & NAZ went up 71. The MLP index rose 2+ to the 204s & the REIT index added 6+ to the 473s. Junk bond funds continued to be sold & Treasuries saw heavy buying. Oil dipped lower & gold was up 7 to 1808 (more on both below).
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
![Live 24 hours gold chart [Kitco Inc.]](https://www.kitco.com/images/live/gold.gif?0.2180338269244485)
The Pentagon will move some of its Europe-based forces further east & deploy additional US-based troops to Europe, as the security situation on Ukraine's border with Russia continues to deteriorate. Pres Biden will send 2K troops in the US to Poland & Germany, where they will join other troops. Another 1K who are already in Europe will be moved to Romania. “These are not permanent moves. We respond to current conditions, we will adjust our posture as those conditions evolve,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said. Kirby was unable to give a timeline of when the service members would deploy. The deployment comes as an estimated 100K Russian troops equipped with advanced weaponry line Ukraine's eastern border with Russia & northern border with Belarus, a Moscow ally. Kirby explained the 3K-strong troop deployment announced is separate from the 8500 service members announced last month. The Pentagon placed 8500 military personnel on “heightened alert” to deploy to Europe should NATO activate a response force. The troops represent America's contribution to the 40K-strong NATO Response Force (NRF) whose activation requires approval of all 30 NATO members.
U.S. to move 3,000 troops closer to Ukraine as Russia crisis escalates
Alphabet (GOOG) reported EPS of $30.69, compared to the
$27.34 estimate. It also blew
past revenue projections of $72.2B, coming in at
$75.3B. The search giant relies heavily on Google's
(GOOGL) advertising revenue, which soared in the qtr. Revenue for the
segment came in at $61.2B, up 33% from $46.2B in the
year-earlier period. The company's cloud also reported revenue growth of 45% to $5.54B. GOOG CEO Sundar Pichai said the
company saw 65% year-over-year growth in the number of cloud deals worth
over $1B. Also, GOOG said its board approved plans for a 20-for-1 stock split GOOG stock soared 203 to 2960.
If you would like to learn more about GOOG click on this link:
club.ino.com/trend/analysis/stock/GOOGa_aid=CD3289&a_bid=6ae5b6f
Alphabet stock jumps on back of blowout earnings
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) should adjust its Covid
masking guidance to account for high immunity protection in America,
specifically when it comes to schools, Dr Scott Gottlieb said. “We have a much more contagious variant that is
probably going to continue to circulate and you have a population that
has much more immunity,” he added, referring to the proliferation of the omicron variant in the
US, on top of most school-age kids being eligible for vaccination. “We’re
going to probably have to tolerate, and probably should, a higher level
of baseline spread at the point at which we consider withdrawing some
of this mitigation,” said Gottlieb. He added the US shouldn't wait until what the CDC considers low
prevalence in a community — less than 10 cases per 100K people per
day — to end masking students, teachers, staff & school visitors. “If
we hold out, again, if we wait for 10 cases per 100,000 per day in most
communities, we’re probably going to be waiting until the summer; we’re
going to lose the opportunity this spring to try to return some sense
of normalcy in the schools,” he said, arguing a more appropriate
threshold could be 20 cases per 100K people per day. Gottlieb
said CDC guidance is “a pretty high threshold in the age of
omicron,” adding that agency testing conducted right before the omicron
wave showed that 90% of Americans have antibodies against Covid either
thru a vaccine or infection, or both.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb says it’s time to consider dumping school Covid mask mandates
Gold futures tallied a 3rd straight gain, as an unexpected monthly fall in US private-sector jobs, weakness in the $ & a further retreat in yields for gov debt helped lift the precious metal to its highest settlement price in a week. Today, gold got a boost after data showed privately run US businesses reduced employment by 301K jobs in Jan –- the biggest drop since the start of the pandemic. The forecast called for a 200K gain. Apr gold rose $8 (0.5%) to settle at $1810 an ounce, following a 0.3% advance yesterday. Prices marked the highest settlement for a most-active contract since Jan 26. The move for gold comes as the 10-year Treasury not yielded 1.56%, down by over 4 basis points from its levels yesterday, while the $ was down nearly 0.5%, as gauged by the ICE US Dollar Index, a gauge of the buck against a ½-dozen other currencies. Bullion has been buoyant so far in 2022 but the precious metal remains caught in a relatively tight range with $1850 serving as an area of resistance, against the prospective of the Federal Reserve launching a regime of higher interest rates.
Gold climbs a third straight session to highest finish in a week
Stocks rose in a choppy session as investors mulled a fresh
batch of earnings results from major index components & tried to
further shake off Jan's volatility. The first 2 days of Feb have seen a rally. But tomorrow brings the jobless claims report & Fri shows the unemployment rate along with the number of' new jobs. Today's weak advance/decline ratio is a negative
Dow Jones Industrials
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