Good morning. It appears investors are getting into the holiday season. Yesterday they once again pushed the Dow and S&P 500 to record highs. Whoo-hoo-hoo! The numbers were the Dow popped 40 points, 0.2% to 17,688, the S&P 500 rose 11, 0.5%, to 2,052 and the Nasdaq did the best up 31 points, 0.7%, to 4,702. The rally builds on a market rebound in recent weeks powered by strong corporate earnings and easing concerns about the spread of Ebola and economic growth overseas. Yesterday it was the pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies turn to push up the major indexes. Also helping our markets were the European and Asian markets. Regarding the former, and as I mentioned yesterday, the ZEW report on Germany was very positive and above expectations and the latter Japan’s government confirmed it will delay a sales tax hike planned for next year which sent the Nikkei soaring 2.2%. There was also some local economic news investors liked. The National Association of Homebuilders reported its NAHB/Wels Fargo index of homebuilder’s sentiment rose from 54 in October to 58 in November which was well above the market’s expectation of 55. Like so many of these sorts of indices, a reading of over 50 is the most important thing for it reflects “growth” as opposed to “weakness.”

This morning the Asian markets all closed lower, the European markets are trading mixed and U.S. stocks are all bleeding with the Dow down 45. There’s really not much fundamental data so without positive news I think nervous length is taking profits after the run we’ve had. Remember, you have to feed a bull market. All you need for stocks to go down is for the buying to stop.

Oil is once again slipping with WTI yesterday closing $1.03 lower to $74.61 and Brent falling 84¢ to $78.47. The bears are in control of this market and the pressure will be downward until someone (OPEC/Saudi Arabia) or something (Mideast conflict) abates the fall. In fact, the opposite is happening. Data out of Riyadh yesterday indicated Saudi Arabia actually increased exports in September despite signs the world is amply supplied. In a research note yesterday Goldman Sachs said that Brent prices may need to fall as low as $60/bbl to slow production if OPEC cannot agree to cut production next week (I wonder who’s short Brent?!)

Many of you probably heard this because it was all over the news this morning and that was the Senate voted on the Keystone XL pipeline yesterday and it failed to pass by one vote, 59 to 41. 14 Democrats, including Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, voted for the legislation. She is in a tough reelection to keep her seat with the voters going to the polls in early December. Republicans have vowed to again bring the bill to a vote in January when the Senators newly elected in the recent mid-term elections take their seats.

This morning WTI is doing absolutely nothing being up an insignificant penny to yesterday’s close.

Natural gas sure has gotten volatile recently. On Monday natty leaped 18¢, yesterday it fell 9.7¢ and I’ll jump ahead telling you it’s up a huge 18.4¢ as I write. It’s all about the weather. Yesterday the forecast came in warmer for the 11-15 day term and today it’s coming in cold for the eastern 2/3rds of the country with a big mass of cold air sitting over Hudson Bay. Implausible as this sounds for a mid-November and a country that includes Hawaii, all 50 states yesterday registered a freezing temperature. It was the coldest November morning since 1976. Now for that to happen it took a reading of 31 degrees 13,800 feet up on the dormant volcano Mount Kea in Hawaii. Now this phenomenon is rare but not exceedingly so but for it to happen in November and not January or February is remarkable.

While on the topic of weather, record to near-record lows and cold high temperatures are expected in the East today. What is crazy is that the forecast for the weekend and early next week is for some of the same East cities that set record cold temps are expected to be within a few degrees of record warm max/min temps on Monday. I’m sure Al Gore is busy booking speaking engagements!

Courtesy of MDA Information Systems LLC

None of you better be complaining about your home electricity bills. You could be living in the EU where the average residential price for electricity translated into ¢/kWh is 26.57! That’s 219% higher than the average price paid in the U.S., 12.12¢, and that includes Hawaii which has the highest electricity rates in the nation at 36.99¢/kWh (they have to import all their generation fuel (diesel)). Always count your blessings that you live in the U S of A. Have a good day.