CHESSNOID

The New Year is here and so is a stock market rally for the first day.  Not even negative news will bring it down. The numbers are:

Is this a good sign or investors just wanting to buy cheap stocks prematurely? I guess we will know looking back who made the right decisions today.

We did come off a really bad down year in 2008 so maybe this is just what many investors are hoping or planning for in 2009.  The stock market is definitely unpredictable.  With bad news it can go in either direction.

US Economy: Manufacturing Shrinks as Orders Hit 60-Year Low

The decline in U.S. manufacturing deepened in December as demand for such products as cars, appliances and furniture reached the lowest level since at least 1948, signaling further cutbacks in factory jobs and production this year.

The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 32.4, below economists’ forecasts and the lowest level since 1980, from 36.2 the prior month. Readings less than 50 signal contraction. The group’s new-orders measure reached the lowest level on record and prices slid the most since 1949.

“Every component suggests that the weakness is going to carry over into 2009,” Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “There’s just not a whole lot of new business coming in,” and companies will have a “painful adjustment” as consumers shun spending.

Today it shot straight up and hasn’t looked back. This could be from the enthusiasm for Bush leaving office and Obama replacing him, followed by another stimulus package.