Do we get some window dressing?

     At the end of every quarter on wall street there exists a phenomenon called "window dressing".  This is where portfolio managers and traders buy up stocks  that have done well in the quarter and sell the ones that have done bad to make their portfolio's look better to their investors.  Generally this is a time when stocks rise as money is put to work to make the quarter look better than it really was.  If you look at the end of the last quarter in June, you can see a good example of it.  Stocks really rose at the end of June.

     We are coming to another end of quarter and after last weeks drubbing, markets are looking for any reason to rally.  As such, stocks are once again up today nearly 100 points on the DJIA in the early going and the SNP and NASDAQ are up as well.   We gave back 150 pts of gain on the DJIA yesterday and today we may get it all back!  The headlines will say we are up on "European hopes" but we know better...it's because of window dressing!

     After flying yesterday, European stocks have settled down a bit mostly in the red by modest amounts.  London was down almost 1%, Frankfurt was up with a marginal gain and Paris was down by .4%.  Gold remains near yesterday's closing price and seems to be stabilizing and silver is down a small amount.  Oil is down almost 1%.  The euro is rallying once again up a third of a percent.

     Across South America, the Brazilian Bovespa is up over 1% and the Argentina Merval is not open but was up 2% yesterday.  Asian shares were mixed with Tokyo up and Hong Kong down.