Markets rip higher for the second day in a row for exactly the opposite reason stocks tanked just a few days ago! Reasons du jour?
The Fed's Vice Chair Janet Yellin promised that the Fed was planning on keeping rates at near zero until 2015 or forever, whichever is needed. This is a continuation of the back and forth messages the Fed has been sending the past few weeks. In addition, US GDP growth is now estimated to be in the neighborhood of 2.5% to 3.5%. Nice.
Earnings started off better than expected with Alcoa and continue to improve. Folks who were worried are now optimistic about this earnings season. If you were paying attention after hours then you saw Google announce some sort of new-fangled stock split. I think we all need to sleep on that one and see how we feel in the morning.
Folks were worried about slowing growth in China, now they're optimistic about rumored stronger than expected growth.
And regarding Europe, folks were worried about Spain, Italy and debt, but bond yields fell in Europe on good results at Italy's bond auction.
Last year we saw wild market swings from day to day and week to week. Are we entering that sort of thing again?
Anyway, the market has almost recovered its losses from the recent 4% pullback.