Bulls Own Wall Street in Last Quarter of 2013

摘要

Our session was bookended by the end of the government shutdown in October and the easing of the Fed's stimulus program in December. Both events sent stocks roaring ahead, and when our trading session and the year ended Dec. 31, 2013, the S&P 500 Index marked its best year since 1997; the Dow Jones industrial average rose the most since 1995. In between, very little dissuaded markets from their upward climb, and indices kept hitting new record closes. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 73.2 in October, from 77.5 in September, and under the 75 economists were expecting. The Labor Department said that employers added 148,000 jobs in September, below the 193,000 added the month before. Fears of the Fed taper roiled the markets in November, but they churned upward anyway, with the Nasdaq ending above 4,000 for the first time in 13 years. To start, the Institute for Supply Management said that its index of factory activity increased to 56.4 in October, the strongest reading since April 2011, and better than the 55.1 expected by economists surveyed by FactSet. The Labor Department reported that 204,000 new jobs were created in October, ahead of the 125,000 jobs expected, and more were created in August and September than initially reported.