S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) Index fund owners will certainly be dancing in the street as summer, for most Americans, gives way to fall. While leaves in many parts of the country will do their own color dance before falling from the trees to signify the approaching winter, the S&P 500 shows no signs of following them, but rather tries to extend summer for another year.
Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE), a company long tied to the fortunes of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) users, had an especially good week as shares climbed over 10 percent in this week’s trading, highlighted by a gain of over 9 percent on Wednesday.
Thanks to Adobe (and others) the benchmark index was on track to finish up more than 1 per cent for the third straight week. With that gain, the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) is up over 5 percent for the first 15 trading days of September.
As mentioned, Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) was not alone; the industrial sector was up 2.7 percent, materials higher by 2.3 percent, and the consumer discretionary group up 2 percent.
Safeway Inc. (NYSE:SWY) shined, along with Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE), seeing the stock rise over 10 percent as it launched a “poison pill” after learning that a hedge fund (which will remain nameless) had built up a significant position in the grocer.
FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) also nearly added 10 percent to its share price as the the company improved margins in a slow year, culminating in a sound earnings beat.
Wednesday saw The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) gain nearly four percent following a big boost from Wednesday’s rally.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average refused to give the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) all the glory, and touched its own records this week, led by The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA)’s successful flight of the 787-9 and news that it was close to signing an F-15 Silent Eagle contract with South Korea.
Mike Sorrentino on tapering
Mike Sorrentino, chief strategist of Global Financial Private Capital, essentially told investors that guessing when the taper would occur is a fool’s errand.
“To me a lot of this is turning into a guessing game,” he said. “I don’t think Ben Bernanke’s wife even knows when tapering is going to happen.”
“From our perspective, the economy is looking good; not great, but good. Right now, in the short term it looks a little expensive, but long term we see a cyclical bullish story,” he said. “We see potential for GDP growth going forward, albeit it’s going to take a lot to get going. Slow and steady wins the race here, but that’s driving our preference for equities.”
