Forget about the latest report from the Department of Labor showing that initial unemployment claims increased by 10,000 to 418,000. The latest Greek bailout plan boosted the euro and crushed the dollar. The “dollar bull” exchange-traded fund (UUP) dropped lower than an entire percentage point on Thursday, before regaining some of that ground to close at a loss of 94 basis points (0.94 percent). We haven’t seen dollar weakness like this since the good-old days of quantitative easing! Thursday was definitely a “risk on” day! Yaaa-hooo! (In other words, the market went looking for suckers on Thursday and it found plenty of them.)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained a whopping 152 points on Thursday, to close at 12,724 for a gain of 1.21 percent. The S&P 500 bolted upward immediately after the opening bell, to finish the day with a gain of 1.35 percent at 1,343. The NASDAQ Composite took a bounce off 2,807 before heading back northbound to end the day at 2,834 for a gain of 72 basis points (0.72 percent).
Miami-based corporations had a solid day on Thursday. Lennar (LEN) was in the headlines because its old nemesis, Barry Minkow, was sent back up the river for a 5-year stretch, resulting from his 2008 short-selling scam in which he falsely claimed that Lennar was a “Ponzi scheme”. Lennar closed at 18.63 for a gain of 1.31%. Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL) jumped by 2.43% to finish at 36.28. Ryder System ( R ) gained 1.21% to close at 58.75. Royal Caribbean (RCL) enjoyed a more modest gain of 70 basis points (0.70%) to end the day at 36.03.
