Stocks ended the day higher, but just barely. Boosted by housing data and the Apple announcement, the major indexes finished the day slightly higher. The Dow closed up 6 points to 13,293. The Nasdaq 100 finished the day up 23 points to 3,078. The S&P 500 rounded out the day’s modest gains, up 5.5 points to ,409.
The Nasdaq today was buttressed by the two-fold Apple announcement. First they announced a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share. The second part of the announcement was a stock buy-back program. Some analysts said that Apple went and made dividends cool again. Other analysts say that it is possible for Apple to stretch its run to $700 per share. That would make the stock look even more toppy than it does now.
The rest of the market spent the day digesting the first in a series of housing data points to be released this year. With housing sentiment number coming in high, there is hope that the lagging housing market could be joining the recovery.
The one caveat to the recovery that analysts are quick to point out is rising energy prices. Already skyrocketing gas prices could start to pinch the consumer’s pocket and throw inflationary models out of whack. Toss in some good old fashioned geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and it makes for one giant caveat. [Read more...]
