Columbus Day: The Market That Wouldn't Close

Today is officially a Holiday....Columbus Day I recall in the 1980′s we used to call the S&P500 Futures Pit the market that wouldn’t close. Today is one of those days….Stocks are Open – Bonds are Closed. The markets will be a bit thinner than normal because Japan was also closed (presumably not the same Holiday as ours).

World markets were mostly higher Monday as investors plowed cash into stocks amid expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve will take action to prevent the American economy from slipping back into recession.

Oil prices rose to near $83 a barrel while the struggling dollar edged up against the yen and fell against the euro. Wall Street was set to open higher with Dow futures up 20 points, or 0.2 percent, to 10,967.00.

European shares advanced modestly in early trading. London’s FTSE 100 index was up 0.2 percent to 5,668.10. Germany’s DAX index gained 0.2 percent to 6,301.51 and France’s CAC-40 index added 0.4 percent to 3,776.21.

Those gains followed a jump higher in most major markets in Asia, where Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed up 1.2 percent to 23,207.31. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3 percent to close at 4,697.50, the index’s highest close since May 5.

The Shanghai Composite Index jumped 2.5 percent to 2,806.94 while South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.4 percent to 1,889.91. Markets in India and Singapore also rose while Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia lost ground.